Lasagna - The Easy Way

A long time ago, someone taught me that you don't have to boil the lasagna noodles when you make lasagna. Ever since then, I have used raw noodles in my dish and it comes out perfectly every single time. This one less step makes putting together a lasagna dish so fast & easy that I can't believe I don't do it more often.

You can use whatever recipe you want for making the meat sauce. 

This time I cooked up a couple of Italian Hot Sausages and cut them up into bite size pieces and added it to my hamburger mix. I also threw in a couple of sliced mushrooms, a tiny amount of onion, added my spaghetti sauce from a can and went to work building my dish. So, for new cooks, brown your meat first, add onion and mushrooms (optional) and cook about 4 or 5 minutes until onions are cooked. Add your tomato sauce. You can use a jar of Ragu or a can of Hunts spaghetti sauce.

Spray your pan with a non-stick spray. Start with a thin layer of your meat/tomato sauce first, lay down some uncooked lasagna noodles, add a layer of fat-free cottage cheese, meat sauce, grated mozzarella cheese. 

Usually there is enough room for 2 layers.  End with sauce and cheese on top.

Cover with aluminum foil and bake about 45 minutes at 350. 

Let the dish cool before serving.  We actually like it better the next day.

This casserole dish fed us almost the entire week between lunch & dinner.

You can substitute ricotta cheese for cottage cheese but I personally don't care for it.  I use fat-free cottage cheese and it works just fine.

You could add chopped olives to this and it would probably be just wonderful.

This dish is easy to make but it takes practice to learn how your family likes it.

Hope you'll try it!   



Ingredients:
1/2 lb. hamburger (more or less, depending on how you like your lasagna)
1/2 lb. sausage (spicy if you like) (optional)
1 can of spaghetti sauce (Ragu or Hunts)
A little chopped up onion (optional)
A couple of sliced mushrooms (optional)
1 clove of garlic (optional)
1 container cottage cheese
1 16-oz. ball of mozzarella cheese, grated