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With the crazy work schedules that Bob and I both keep, having easy weeknight dinners is key. I always appreciate being able to make a big batch of something that I won’t get sick of if I eat it for an entire week. For me, that meal is lasagna. There’s something about the big, pillowy squares of goodness that give me so much comfort and joy.
Lasagna ingredients and even the layering order are incredibly subjective, so take this more as a guide than a “by the book” recipe, unless you love my style, of course! Before you make this divine meal, be sure you have a great lasagna pan that’s 9×13 and is extra deep. Your average glass pan won’t do, so, if you need new equipment be sure to check out this deep lasagna pan
Important note: the lasagna can sometimes look “watery” if you eat it right after you bake it off. I would highly recommend making this at least a night ahead (including baking it) and then storing it in the refrigerator and reheating single servings so the pieces are a bit more cohesive.
Ingredients:
- 36 oz cottage cheese (you may use ricotta if you like the smooth texture instead) — this equates to a large plus small container
- Garlic salt, to taste
- 2T parsley (fresh or dried)
- 1 box no bake lasagna noodles
- 1 large jar spaghetti sauce (I love Prego Traditional)
- 2 lbs meat (I used ground beef this time, but will sometimes do half beef, half mild italian sausage)
- About 40 pepperonis
- 1 bag shredded mozzarella cheese
- 12 deli slices provolone cheese
- Non-stick olive oil spray
Instructions:
- Brown your meat in a skillet, breaking it up into fine pieces
- Drain the grease from the pan
- Add your spaghetti sauce right to the skillet with the meat and combine
- Empty your cottage cheese into a medium sized bowl
- Add garlic salt (to taste) and parsley to the cottage cheese and mix thoroughly
- Spray the sides and bottom of your lasagna pan with the non-stick spray (this step is super important)
- Spread a thin layer of meat sauce on the bottom of the pan
- Layer the lasagna noodles so they are slightly overlapping on top of the layer of sauce. You’ll probably have to break a noodle up to be able to get the sides perfectly — no shame!
- On top of the noodles, I then do my cottage cheese mixture. I do it thick enough to cover but monitor how much you have left as you’ll need to get another layer out of it.
- Next comes the pepperoni – as you can see above, I typically put the pepperoni in perfect rows to ensure I’m covering everything, and then I top it with a light layer of mozzarella (about half the bag).
- The next layer is another layer of noodles, followed by meat sauce. The reason I go out of order is because the meat sauce tends to help the noodles cook a bit more, so it’s good to have it near that layer.
- The next layers are provolone cheese (layer it like the pepperoni), cottage cheese mixture, pepperoni, noodles, and finish it up with meat sauce on top.
- The final layer is the shredded mozzarella.
- Bake covered in foil for about 45 minutes at 350 and then remove the foil for 15 minutes.
- Let the pan cool completely, recover with the foil and let it sit overnight — like I said above, it’s SO much better when you’re eating it in single servings the next day.
Enjoy!
