My mother made the absolutely best lasagna in the whole wide world. She made the sauce from scratch and used real ricotta cheese and grated the mozzarella from a ball. Once a year, my church youth group would make dinner for the families that fed us dinner at our weekly Sunday evening meetings. We'd gather at the youth leaders' house and assemble pans of lasagna, giving back to those who gave to us. Once I had a family of my own, I would make lasagna for Christmas Eve dinner. I remember the first Christmas after the divorce, having my adult children come for Christmas Eve lasagna at my apartment. Now lasagna is too much work and too much food. But I missed lasagna...
I finally found a way to make lasagna for two! I used a small baking dish - the Corningware A-1-B 1Q casserole dish was perfect for this. (If you don't have one, I bet your mother does.) You will want a square dish if possible. If you end up using a rectangular one, you might have to trim the noodles and only have two layers. That's okay. I just happen to like fat lasagna! Lasagna memories are back!
My mother would always lay out the noodles on paper towels so they didn't stick together and tear. For this recipe, you will be cutting the noodles in half. Ricotta cheese is usually sold in 15 oz containers and you'll have a lot leftover. You can substitute cottage cheese to save money and waste. I use jarred marinara sauce. You'll be using some of the jarred sauce to make your meat sauce filling and the some for the bottom of the pan and the top layer. You can heat up the remainder of the jar and serve on the side or freeze it for another dish. And of course it is not a lasagna dinner without salad!
Yield: 2
Lasagna for two
Ingredients
- 4 lasagna noodles
- 1/2 tablespoon olive oil
- 3/4 cup Ricotta cheese
- 3 tablespoons Parmesan cheese, divided
- 3/4 cup shredded Mozzarella cheese
Sauce
- 1/2 tablespoon olive oil
- 1/2 cup chopped onions
- 1/2 teaspoon minced garlic
- 8 ounces ground beef
- 1/2 teaspoon Italian seasoning
- 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/8 teaspoon black pepper
- 1 1/4 cups marinara sauce, divided
Instructions
Preparation - noodles, sauce and cheese
- preheat oven to 350 degrees F
- Cook the lasagna noodles according to package directions. Drain, rinse and lay out flat on paper towels.
- While noodles are cooking, heat the oil in a medium-sized skillet over a medium heat. Saute onions for 2 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add in the minced garlic and cook, stirring occasionally for a minute more.
- Add the ground beef to the pan. Sprinkle the Italian seasoning, salt, and pepper over the meat. Cook and break up the ground beef until no longer pink.
- Stir in 3/4 cup of the marinara sauce, reduce the heat to low and simmer for 3 minutes.
- Meanwhile, stir the ricotta and 2 tablespoons of the Parmesan cheese together in a small bowl. Set the bowl aside.
- To Assemble The Lasagna
Assemble the Lasagna
- Spread 1/4 cup of the plain sauce into the bottom of a lightly greased small baking dish.
- Cut noodles in 1/2. You now have 8 noodles. Line the bottom of the baking dish with three noodles - overlapping noodles slightly.
- Top the noodles with the 1/2 meat sauce mixture, followed by 1/2 the Ricotta mixture, and 1/4 cup of the shredded Mozzarella.
- Cover with three more noodles, overlapping slightly and top with remaining meat mixture, ricotta mixture and remaining 1/4 cup of Mozzarella.
- Cover that layer with remaining two noodles. Top with the remaining 1/4 cup plain sauce, remaining 1/4 cup Mozzarella cheese, and remaining 1 T Parmesan cheese.
- Place the casserole dish on a baking sheet (to catch any spillage) and place in the oven to bake for 30 minutes or until cheese on top has melted.