Lasagna Bolognese - Recipe and Photos

Since I was a little boy Lasagne has always been one of my favorite comfort foods. My favorite preparation is the Lasagne Bolognese with a classic Italian Sugo, Bechamel Sauce and plenty of cheese.  

Of course the most important ingredient is the Bolognese Sauce. I will share my recipe together with some photos this week.

The ingredients for 4 portions (pretty big ones):

To fill in the Lasagna

• 1.2 kg of Bolognese sauce
• Lasagna pasta, no precooking requiered (I normally use Barilla)
• 250g of Buffalo Mozzarella
• 150g of Parmesan cheese
• 50g of Butter
• Freshly ground black pepper

For the Bechamél Sauce

• 50g of butter
• 50g of wheat flower
• 700ml of scolding milk
• Freshly ground black Pepper
• Ground nutmeg
• Salt

Heat up your Bolognese Sauce and reduce the liquid. You want the Bolognese Sauce to be a little bit stiffer than what you would normally put on top of your regular pasta. This is to avoid that your Lasagna gets too liquid and melts on the plates when you serve it.

While the Bolognese cooks at low temperature you can go ahead with preparing the other ingredients. Cut the Mozzarella into small cubes and use the small holes of your cheese grater to get a smaller shred of the Parmesan cheese.

For the Bechamel Sauce use a scale to get exactly 50g of butter and 50g of wheat flower. In a small cooking pot with a handle heat up the milk until it comes close to boiling and reduce the heat to avoid any accidents. Now put the butter in a wide cooking pot in which you can easily stir with a whisk. Heat up the cooking pot on medium heat until the butter is fully melted. Be careful that you don't overheat or the butter will burn and get brown. Now put in the flour and stir up the butter and the wheat until you have a smooth mixture. Fry the mixture for about 2 minutes until you get a golden color. Constantly stir to make sure you have a creamy consistency. Take the hot milk with one hand and keep stirring while you slowly pour in the hot milk. Make sure the milk and the fried flour mix well and keep smooth. If the flour keeps clumping together, stir harder! When all milk is worked into the mixture bring it to boil then reduce the heat a little. Put in half a teaspoon of salt, a pinch of the freshly ground black pepper and a pinch of nutmeg. Let the sauce boil at low heat for 5 minutes and constantly stir to avoid that it bakes on the cooking pot. Turn off the heat, ready.

Filling in the lasagna is pretty easy. While you fill in the Lasagna turn on your oven and preheat to 190 degrees Celsius. Use a ceramic or a glass baking dish. Ideally as wide and deep as two lasagna pasta sheets next to each other. Butter the baking dish and put a little bit of bolognese sauce on the bottom. I do this to avoid that the first layer of pasta bakes onto the bottom of the baking dish. Now put in two sheets of pasta. Put on a layer of bolognese sauce so that the pasta is fully covered, but not too thick. Put some Bechamel sauce on top of the Bolognese. Not too much for two reasons: a) your lasagna might get too liquid b) you will need quite a bit of bechamel sauce for the last layer in the last step. Grind a little bit of black pepper and scatter some parmesan cheese over the sauces. Congrats, your first layer is ready. Put on the next layer of pasta and repeat until your lasagna grows to the top of the baking dish or you run out of Bolognese sauce.

The last layer, is different. You should have used all bolognese sauce by now and you should have reserved a good portion of bechamel sauce. Put the rest of your Bechamel sauce directly on the pasta and cover it with a thick layer of sauce. Take the rest of the Parmesan cheese and scatter it over the bechamel sauce. I always put some small butter flakes on top of the Parmesan cheese and the rest of the Mozzarella cheese if there is any. This is to avoid that the Parmesan cheese dries out and gets hard in the oven. Now you are ready to bake the Lasagne!

Cook the Lasagna for about 30 minutes. Most of the pasta you can buy for Lasagna is cooked in 15 minutes, so no worries 30 minutes is plenty. If the cheese is not nicely gratinated put the oven into broil mode until you get a nice golden brown crust of baked Parmesan cheese. Your Lasagna should look like the cover photo of the post when you take it out. Use a sharp knife to cut the Lasagana. First move it around the edges of the baking dish and then cut it into 4 pieces. Serve with a wide frying spatula. E voila, enjoy your Lasagna.

Writing this post I got hungry again. Unfortunately I just ate the last piece that was left over from yesterday. Tip: To heat up the lasagna use a frying pan with a lid, put in the cold lasagna, cover the bottom of the pan with some water, put on medium heat and wait for about 5 minutes until the hot vapor heats up your lasagna. Better than using the oven because it is faster and your Lasagna does not dry out.