The other day I was in the mood for lasagna. The last time I cooked a lasagna was about 4 years ago, so needless to say, I was a bit rusty. I put out the call on Facebook and, as always, ya didn’t let me down. I was referred to this Slow Cooker Lasagna recipe on Betty Crocker’s website. (Thanks to Stephanie for pointing it out!)
Two things drew me to that recipe in particular – the words slow cooked and make the night before. WIN-WIN.
We tweaked the recipe a bit – instead of making it in the crock pot, we made ours in the dutch oven and baked it over hours at a low temp (same concept as the crock pot). We also used beef in our lasagna instead of the sausage that Betty’s recipe calls for. No reason for the deviation, just what we had on hand.
We made the lasagna the night before and it made enough for FOUR meals for us (2 adults, 1 mini).
You will need:
- 1 pound ground beef (or sausage)
- 1 medium onion, chopped
- 30 oz pasta sauce (your preference)
- 2 teaspoons dried basil leaves
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 2 Cups shredded mozzarella cheese
- 1 Cup grated Parmesan cheese
- 15 oz part-skim ricotta cheese
- 1 package uncooked lasagna noodles (about 15 noodles)
How to make:
- Saute ground beef and onion in saute pan until the beef is no longer pink. Drain. Add pasta sauce, basil and salt.
- In a bowl, mix 1 cup of the shredded mozzarella cheese with the ricotta cheese. Store remaining mozzarella in refrigerator.
- In slow cooker or dutch oven: spoon one quarter of your beef/onion mixture into dish and spread to cover the bottom. Layer 5 noodles on top of the beef, breaking the noodles as necessary to fit the dish. Spread half of cheese mixture over the layer of noodles. Add another quarter of beef on top of the cheese, then 5 more noodles, the rest of the cheese, another quarter of beef, 5 more noodles and finally the rest of the beef.
- At this point, you can pop the dish into the refrigerator to cook the following day OR
- If you’re cooking immediately – turn crock pot on low for 4-6 hours OR place dutch oven in your oven at 200 degrees F for 4-6 hours.
- We cooked ours at 200 F for 5 hours and the results were incredible.
- Add the remaining 1 cup of mozzarella cheese on top of your cooked lasagna. Cover and let stand for 10-15 minutes (until the cheese on top has melted).
This recipe makes a LOT of lasagna!
We cut ours into 4 sections. We ate one portion that night, the 2nd the following night and froze the remaining two meals.