Lasagna

I thought I'd start with a recipe that's not too easy but not too hard. Lasagna is a good recipe to know off-hand. It's great for families, potlucks, leftovers, or even just for yourself. As with most of my recipes, this one requires a slow cooker. I prefer recipes that don't require a lot of prep, since I have Baby to chase around, but it's hard to find recipes with ground beef that you don't need to brown first.

A lot of these ingredients I already have on hand, so the only things I need to buy unique for this recipe are: ground beef (unless you're using beef for another recipe as well - see below), cottage cheese, and lasagna noodles.

I prefer my meat-to-sauce ratio to be a little more even, so although this recipe calls for 1/2 to 1 lb of ground beef, I use about 1.25 lb. It also calls for 32 oz of sauce, but I only use one jar (about 23 oz). However, an important rule as a beginner is to trust trial and error! During my first time making this, I followed the recipe exactly, and I found it was a little too saucy for me. Plus, it's more convenient for me to use one jar of Ragu than to open up a second and have to find a way to use the rest of it before it expires.

Sidenote:

I always use slow cooker liners for my recipes. Obviously if funds are tight, don't bother - a little scrubbing never hurt anyone! But Hubby and I decided we would rather spend time with each other and Baby than slave over cleaning a crusted mess from the slow cooker. These are usually $2.59 for a box of 4 liners at Publix, but they are cheaper at Walmart. If you can afford it, it is so nice to just toss away the mess and be done!

Ingredients

1/2 to 1 lb ground beef (I use 1.25 lb)

36 oz (a jar and a half) of spaghetti sauce (I use 23 oz, or one jar)

16 oz cottage cheese

1/4 C grated parmesan cheese

1 egg

1 t Italian seasoning

9 lasagna noodles, uncooked

8 oz shredded mozzarella cheese

1. Brown the meat

The first step is to brown the ground beef. This is as simple as it sounds. Put it in a pan, turn it on medium, stir the ground beef around until it is all brown.

2. Combine cottage cheese mixture.

I like to do this while the meat is browning. Combine cottage cheese, parmesan cheese, egg, Italian seasoning. Stir well.

3. Combine meat and sauce.

Once the meat is cooked, drain it. Then stir meat and spaghetti sauce together in a separate bowl. This recipe requires a lot of bowls just because you don't want to mix your layers until it's in the slow cooker.

4. Layers!

Star with 1/3 of the meat sauce at the bottom of your slow cooker. Then break up 3 lasagna noodles and place them on top.

Add 1/2 of the cottage cheese mixture. Then top that with half of your mozzarella.

Add another 1/3 of the meat sauce. Break up 3 more noodles and place on top. Dump remaining cottage cheese mixture and mozzarella cheese. Lastly, top with remaining 3 noodles and pour on remaining sauce. Cook 5-6 hours on low.

This recipe yields 6 servings. Hubby and I eat really well and then have three containers of leftovers the next day.

Enjoy! :)

[Original recipe found here]

Meal Planning?

Do you have extra ground beef? Have a taco night, or try my oven hamburger recipe!

Extra Ragu? Try making pizza pasta (coming soon!). This recipe will also use up any ground beef you have leftover.