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Lasagna, my absolute favorite dish in the world to eat. The one I most loathe to make, at least that was before I discovered a couple of shortcuts that made it a lot easier to make, at least for me.

First tip - pre-shredded mozzarella cheese. Why spend time shredding cheese when it's already done for you? It's a bit pricier, sure, but if you can find it on sale, it will keep for a while if it's unopened. Personally, I keep a bag or two on hand at all times. If you don't want to buy cheese that isn't shredded, a tip for making the shredding process easier is to freeze the cheese for a couple of hours prior to trying to shred it, especially if shredding by hand.

Second tip - No-Boil noodles. To me, the biggest chunk of time to make lasagna is the boiling of the noodles, which then stand the chance of being overcooked mush or undercooked bricks. When you boil the noodles, they can stick together, they can tear, they can cause all kinds of problems, frankly. You can never tell if they're going to be overcooked by the time you bake your dish and there is nothing more unappealing than a mushy, overcooked lasagna.

Another great tip for Lasagna making, use a disposable aluminum pan for easy clean-up. I know that the worse part of making anything is the clean up, especially if you are making something that you will be eating from for multiple meals. Clean-up is one of the biggest problems I have with cooking in general, so I always try to find something that makes it easier and more fun.

My favorite Lasagna is a very simple and basic one, one that really doesn't require much fuss at all and can be easily varied for whatever you wish to add or subtract from it.

Ingredients:

1lb Mozzarella Cheese

1 Jar/Can Spaghetti Sauce of Choice (Mine is Hunts Roasted Garlic)

1lb Ground Meat (your choice of meats) cooked and drained

1lb Ricotta Cheese

2 9oz boxes Barilla No-boil Lasagna Noodles or 1lb of wavy no-boil Lasagna noodles

Layers from Bottom to Top:

Spaghetti Sauce, Noodles, Ricotta, Mozzarella, Spaghetti Sauce, Ground meat, Noodles, repeat until you've used all your noodles. Add a layer of Spaghetti Sauce and any mozzarella that is left.

Bake at 350 for approximately 1hr or until done. Poke a fork into the layers to see if the noodles are fully cooked. You should start checking it after 30 minutes, time varies based on size of the pan and depth of the layers.

You can make variations on the meats, cheeses, sauce. I've used diced pepperoni in place of the ground beef, I've also added mushrooms to the layers as well. I've even used cottage cheese as a replacement for ricotta if I've run short or forgot to purchase it. You can use any type of cheeses you wish, at least 50% mozzarella, otherwise it doesn't taste quite right.

Learn more about this author, Margaret Kerr.
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