A rich, indulgent meal perfect for cosy family gatherings around the kitchen table. Thinly sliced potatoes make a good value substitute for lasagne sheets
Our Food Director Sarah is a food obsessive, and spends most of her time scoping out the latest food trends, experimenting in her own kitchen, or making her family wait to eat while she photographs every dinner she makes for the 'gram! A complete Middle Eastern food junkie, she is never far from a good shawarma marinade, a pinch of Aleppo chilli or a sprig of dill
See more of Sarah Akhurst ’s recipes
Sarah Akhurst
Our Food Director Sarah is a food obsessive, and spends most of her time scoping out the latest food trends, experimenting in her own kitchen, or making her family wait to eat while she photographs every dinner she makes for the 'gram! A complete Middle Eastern food junkie, she is never far from a good shawarma marinade, a pinch of Aleppo chilli or a sprig of dill
See more of Sarah Akhurst ’s recipes
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Ingredients
For the ragù
2 tbsp rapeseed oil
1 large onion, diced
2 carrots, diced
2 sticks celery, diced
3 garlic cloves, finely sliced
2 tsp fennel seeds
80g cubetti pancetta
1kg 20% fat pork mince
200ml white wine
300ml chicken stock
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
2 tsp clear honey
10g fresh sage, roughly chopped
For the béchamel
50g butter
50g plain flour
750ml milk
½ tsp ground nutmeg
75g Stilton, crumbled
75g Parmesan, grated
For the lasagne
100g kale
1kg potatoes, peeled and thinly sliced
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Step by step
For the ragù, heat the oil in a deep frying pan and fry the onion, carrots and celery for 8-10 minutes until soft. Add the garlic, fennel seeds and pancetta; fry for 3-4 minutes. Add the pork mince, breaking it up well. Fry for 4-5 minutes, or until browned all over. Add the wine, let it bubble and reduce then add the stock, balsamic, honey and sage. Simmer for 25-30 minutes, uncovered. Season and set aside.
For the béchamel, melt the butter in a large saucepan and mix in the flour to make a paste. Cook gently for a minute or so, stirring. Slowly add the milk, whisking as you pour to prevent lumps forming. Simmer until the sauce thickens. Mix in the nutmeg, Stilton and half the Parmesan, stirring until the cheese has melted. Season and set aside.
Preheat the oven to 200°C, fan 180°C, gas 6. Blanch the potato slices in a pan of boiling water for 3-4 minutes until just tender, then drain and set aside. Put the kale in a microwaveable bowl with a splash of water. Cover and cook for 90 seconds, until wilted, then drain.
To layer up the lasagne, put a third of the ragù in the base of a baking dish. Top with a third of the kale and then drizzle over some of the béchamel. Cover the surface with a layer of potatoes, then repeat the layers finishing with a layer of potatoes and then a final layer of béchamel. Sprinkle over the remaining Parmesan and bake for 1 hour, until golden and bubbling and the potatoes are tender. Cover the top with foil during cooking if it starts browning too much.
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Add the milk, parsley, nutmeg and pepper to a pot and bring it to the boil. Then strain it and let the milk cool down a bit. Melt the butter in a pan over low heat and then mix in the flour, stirring in 1 splash of milk at a time to make a smooth roux.
Tomato Sauce & Paste: An important component in lasagna. Choosing your favorite tomato sauce will guarantee that you'll love this recipe. A good tomato paste helps to thicken but also adds a sweet and savory umami flavor.
For extra creamy ricotta, add in an extra egg, a handful of grated parmesan, and a quarter cup of shredded mozzarella. Eggs help prevent the ricotta from drying out and serve to bind the ricotta so it doesn't become runny. One or more eggs are recommended whether you add the other ingredients mentioned here or not.
Adding egg to ricotta cheese helps to bind the cheese for lasagna so that it doesn't ooze out of the casserole when you cut it. Basically, the egg helps all the cheesy goodness stay intact. So what happens if you don't put eggs in your lasagna? It'll just be a bit runnier, but omitting the egg won't affect the taste.
Generally, lasagna has about 3 or 4 layers of pasta, with sauce, ricotta cheese, mozzarella, béchamel, and sometimes meat or even meatballs or sausage between those layers.
Garten advises soaking the noodles in hot water instead of boiling them. Incorporating this step in a classic lasagna recipe is super quick and easy, and it cooks the noodles sufficiently before baking. Also, you don't have to wait for noodles to cook thoroughly while boiling in a pot.
So, to achieve the perfect lasagna, the consistency of the sauce is absolutely essential. Both the ragù and béchamel sauce should be dense and creamy. Avoid sauces that are too liquid and slide to the bottom of the dish. A thicker consistency of the sauce will allow the pasta to be flavoured in the best possible way.
Cheese sauce is also known as a Mornay sauce. This sauce is the basic white sauce enriched with cheese. Gruyere, Emmental cheese, or cheddar. A Mornay sauce made with cheddar is commonly used to make macaroni and cheese such as this Cauliflower Mac 'n' Cheese.
A classic French sauce, a béchamel is made with flour, butter, and milk. It is used in many dishes from lasagna to macaroni and cheese to gratins and casseroles to croque monsieur. The butter and flour are cooked together in a heavy-bottomed saucepan to form a thick paste (the roux) before milk is added.
For the white sauce, melt the butter in a saucepan. Add the flour and cook over the heat for one minute. Gradually whisk in the hot milk, whisking until thickened. Add the Dijon mustard and parmesan cheese and season well with salt and pepper.
Introduction: My name is Corie Satterfield, I am a fancy, perfect, spotless, quaint, fantastic, funny, lucky person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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Prep time: 25 mins
