The Best Lasagna with Homemade Ricotta

A simple but delicious lasagna with meat sauce, layered with a homemade ricotta filling and generously topped with cheese. This lasagna is the perfect dinner meal and makes great leftovers.

Preparing to Make Lasagna

Lasagna is one of those dishes that is slightly time-consuming, but it is easy to do. You can prepare all the components (excluding cooking the noodles) ahead of time. I love making a big tray of lasagna because it makes for an easy dinner for the rest of the week. It stores really well in the fridge and in my opinion, the leftovers taste even better as time goes on!

Lasagna actually originated from Italy, in Naples in the 14th century. Over time the components of lasagna have changed. Nowadays, depending on what region of Italy, the ingredients can differ. For example, I’ve seen some recipes with boiled eggs in the lasagna layers. However, from my experience, North Americanized lasagna typically contains these four components:

1. Meat Sauce, also known as Ragu
2. Ricotta Filling
3. Noodles
4. Cheese

Meat Sauce, Ragu

Lasagna in my opinion is so good because of the sauce. Each layer is coated with sauce, which keeps the noodles moist and the entire dish cohesive. The most classic version of lasagna will use some sort of tomato meat sauce. This is also known as Ragu in Italy, and can be made with a variety of meats. I commonly see beef, pork and veal used.

However, in my meat sauce, I only use ground beef. You are welcome to add whatever meat you like! If you are vegetarian, you can skip the meat, and add additional vegetables like celery and peppers.

The secret to making a delicious ragu is by cooking it over medium-low heat for at least an hour. That gentle heat helps bring out the sweetness of the tomatoes and helps reduce any extra liquid. You can definitely make the sauce in advance, up to 5 days, and use it when you are ready to assemble the lasagna.

Ricotta Filling

Ricotta is necessary to make creamy and delicious layers in lasagna. I highly recommend you try making lasagna with homemade ricotta. It definitely makes a difference in the flavour! If you don’t have the time, you can use store-bought ricotta as well. Of course, I have my own recipe for homemade ricotta which can be found here!

I have to be honest with you, lasagna is probably not the most healthy dish out there. I mean it is layers of ragu, cheese, more cheese and noodles haha! This is why I add some extra vegetables and sneak some blanched spinach in the ricotta filling. You really don’t taste it, and if you cut up the blanched spinach into smaller pieces, it’s less noticeable, especially for those with kids or adults that hate vegetables.

The ricotta filling can also be made one day in advance. Because of the spinach, it’s probably best to make it fresh, but up to one day is perfectly fine. For the homemade ricotta itself, I make a batch every 2-3 weeks and store it in my fridge in an airtight container.

Lasagna Noodles

Lasagna noodles can be found in pretty much every grocery store and it is pretty affordable. One pack of lasagna noodles will be sufficient for this recipe. There are basically two types of lasagna noodles you can find. Traditional lasagna noodles that you need to cook ahead of time, and No-Boil Lasagna Noodles. I have yet to make my own lasagna sheets, but I will definitely do that one day haha.

For the No-Boil Lasagna Noodles, all you do is add the noodles as is when you are assembling your lasagna. It definitely saves time and dishes. However, I’ve tried a few and found the end result to still have some bite. I prefer pasta that is cooked past al dente in the final dish, therefore I traditionally stick to regular lasagna noodles. If you have found a No-Boil Lasagna noodle that works best for you, let me know :).

It is best to cook your lasagna noodles before you assemble the lasagna. If are using regular lasagna noodles, make sure you salt the water and cook the noodles to al dente. The lasagna will continue to soften and cook in the oven.

Cheese

What makes this dish extra decadent is of course the cheese! I always use a generous amount of cheese in between the layers. I’ve seen some recipes only use parmesan in the middle layers, however, I like to use grated cheese throughout all the layers.

Most lasagna will use mozzarella on top, and parmesan in between. I like to use either mozzarella or parmesan only, or I will use a blend of cheddar and mozzarella and parmesan. In this recipe, I opted to use both cheddar and mozzarella, with parmesan in the ricotta filling and as a garnish. You can use whatever cheese you like! Just make sure if you are using lots of parmesan, it is quite salty so you can adjust the salt in the recipe!