I was born and raised in the South. Southern cuisine is in my DNA, but I must confess that Italian food is in my heart. Today I have an amazing dinner idea for you, my homemade lasagna recipe!
People are always looking for dinner ideas with hamburger meat. Ground beef is generally cheap and plentiful. Hamburger meat dinner ideas are usually popular with kids, so this will serve as a great family-friendly dinner idea for your bunch.
The key to this homemade lasagna recipe is going to be the tomatoes. The better the tomatoes you use, the better the final product will be. In a pinch, you can use a premade sauce, but the quality of that sauce will affect the quality of the lasagna.
Ingredients
- Lasagna noodles
- 1 lb of ground beef
- olive oil
- 1 can of crushed, diced, or whole tomatoes
- 1 can of tomato sauce
- teaspoon of basil
- teaspoon of oregano
- 1 onion
- 3 cloves of garlic
- salt and pepper to taste
- ricotta cheese
- 1 teaspoon of Italian seasoning
- mozzarella cheese
- Parmesan cheese
- 1 teaspoon parsley (optional)
- pepperonis (optional)
- Italian sausage (optional)
- red pepper flakes (optional)
Prepping Homemade Lasagna
This dish has a lot of moving parts, so let’s get some prep out of the way. Go ahead and finely dice up your onions and garlic. They don’t have to be a mince, but people generally don’t like big chunks of onions in their food, so I would suggest cutting them pretty small. The size will come down to your personal taste.
Next, you can measure out all of your seasonings. Open your cans of tomatoes and sauce. Spoon some ricotta cheese into a bowl and add the Italian seasoning. Mix together until blended thoroughly.
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. We will need 2 pans and a baking dish for this recipe. You need a saucepan for the meat sauce, and a pot or pan to boil the noodles in.
The Noodles
The first step in making lasagna is cooking the noodles. Since they are going to cook in the oven later, we don’t have to cook them all the way. Get a pot of water boiling, and add some salt.
The number of noodles needed will depend on the size of your baking dish. I use a small 8×8 Pyrex baking dish which makes plenty of lasagna for my small family of four. My kids are both small and don’t eat much, so we usually have leftovers.
The 8×8 dish I use needs 9 lasagna noodles to make a 3-layer dish. Each layer has 3 noodles side by side. The width is perfect, but the noodles are a little long, so I cut each one a bit to fit in the dish after they are cooked. You can take the dry noodles and see how well they fit into your dish, as their size won’t change much after boiling.
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Once the water is boiling and salted, drop however many noodles you need. They only need to cook for 3-4 minutes. We just want them flexible enough to maneuver in the dish, as they will finish cooking in the oven. Once they are done, set them aside.
The Sauce
As soon as you put your water on to boil you can begin cooking your sauce. Add a tablespoon or so of olive oil to a saucepan. Turn the heat up to medium, and once the oil is warmed you can add your onions. Let them cook for a bit before adding the garlic, as we don’t want the garlic to burn. Sprinkle in some salt and pepper.
Once the garlic and onions have cooked down some, about 5 minutes after adding the garlic, throw in the hamburger meat. Stir the vegetables into the meat. Season the beef with salt and pepper. Once the pink is mostly cooked out, strain some of the grease off.
With the meat and veggies done, we can now add the tomatoes and sauce. Once the sauce is in, add the basil and oregano. Stir together and turn the heat down to medium-low. If the sauce tastes too acidic, add a teaspoon of sugar.
The sauce can be done in as little as 20-30 minutes. However, the longer you cook it, the better the flavors will come together. Just don’t forget that it will be cooking about 20-30 minutes in the oven as well.
Assembling Homemade Lasagna
Once the noodles and meat sauce are complete, it’s time to assemble the lasagna. Start by adding a thin layer of sauce to the bottom of your baking dish. This will prevent noodles from sticking to the bottom.
Cover the bottom of the dish with noodles. If needed, trim the noodles to fit snugly into the dish. Don’t worry about covering every square inch of space, just cover as much as you easily can.
If you are going to add sausage or pepperonis to the lasagna, now is the time. Layer the meat on top of the noodles. Italian sausage can add some amazing flavor to the dish, and I highly recommend it. I prefer sweet sausage myself.
Next, add sauce on top of the noodles. Grab your ricotta cheese mix, and spoon some on top of the sauce. Spread as evenly as you can. Finally, sprinkle on some mozzarella and Parmesan cheese. That is one layer complete!
Repeat this process until your baking dish is full. I can fit 3 layers into my 8×8 Pyrex dish. Once the dish is full, place it into the preheated oven and bake for 30 minutes. When the time is up, the dish is complete!
Plating
Serving lasagna can be tricky when it’s hot out of the oven. If you give it time to rest, it will come out of the baking dish a little easier. I recommend using a good-sized metal food turner to scoop the lasagna out. Move your serving plate as close as possible to the baking dish to avoid spillage.
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I like to garnish my lasagna with parsley and red pepper flakes. I also drizzle a bit of olive oil on top. A sprinkle of Parmesan wouldn’t hurt either, as you can never have too much Parmesan.
A good salad and garlic bread go great with lasagna. You can make your own with white bread, butter, and garlic salt or powder. There are numerous options at grocery stores such as garlic sticks, garlic knots, and cheesy garlic toast. All you have to do is heat them up in the oven with the lasagna.
I hope you enjoy this homemade lasagna recipe! There will be more family-friendly dinner ideas in the coming weeks. I will also have plenty of hamburger meat dinner ideas, as I know this is a popular option. Be sure to check back for more!
