Eating With Ayla

I love a good lasagna and every place seems to make it differently!  It’s also really hard to find a really good lasagna when you go out to eat, so the best answer to this predicament is to make it at home!

Some think that making lasagna is difficult, but it really isn’t – it takes a bit of time, with the layering and making the sauce fresh but it doesn’t require a lot of effort.  That’s the best part.  Little effort, delicious outcome.

I like to change it up a bit every time I make it – sometimes I’ll use ricotta cheese, sometimes I’ll use a white sauce.  Sometimes I add in some vegetables, and other times I won’t.  Lasagna is one of those dishes that once again, is diverse.  I like recipes where you don’t HAVE to follow a recipe.  You go with what tastes good and honestly, a lot of cheese with pasta and some good bolognese to go with it – it’s pretty much a classic that you know will be good.

So here is my very easy recipe for making a creamy, hearty, full on good lasagna.   If you like a lasagna that is kind of saucy and has a lot of taste, this is for you.

I like to make the meat sauce myself, it’s easy and tastes much better than just getting a jar of tomato sauce and adding that with minced meat.  Here is the recipe for the meat sauce:

Ingredients:

Packet of minced meat – typically just under less than a kilo at the supermarket
Small onion
2 garlic cloves
2 teaspoons tomato paste
1 teaspoon chilli flakes
1 teaspoon mixed herbs
2 cans of diced tomatoes
Spinach
Handful of cherry tomatoes (halved)
Salt to taste
Add in some sriracha sauce if you want some more of a spicy flavour

Instructions:

In a large pot heat up some olive oil and add in the chopping up the onion and the garlic.  Once the onion has softened up, add in the herbs and chilli flakes and let the oil open up the flavours.

After about a minute, add in the minced meat and the tomato paste and stir it around for a few minutes to cook the meat.  After this, add in the cans of diced tomato, as well as the spinach (uncooked, as it will decrease in size in the sauce) and let everything cook well together.   I like to let everything simmer for about 10-15 minutes.  The spinach will decrease in size and then add in the salt for taste, as well as the halved cherry tomatoes and keep it on the stove for another 10 minutes.  Feel free to add in other herbs or spice that you want to change it up.

Lasagna time.

Now that the meat sauce is done, this is what else you will need to make the lasagna:

Packet of lasagna sheets – ones that don’t have to be cooked before
Shredded mozzarella cheese
White sauce – either get this at the supermarket or you could make it yourself!
Basil

To make the lasagna, put a layer of the meat sauce on the bottom of the pan.  Then layer and repeat as follow:

Lasagna
Meat sauce
White sauce
Shredded cheese
A couple of basil leaves

You’ll do this about 2 or 3 times till your ingredients are finito!  Then sit it in the oven for 45 minutes at 190 celsius.

As I said before, if you don’t want basil – don’t have basil! If you want to add in some chopped salami in the middle of it all, then do so.  It’s great and versatile and I like to change it up every time.  However, this meat sauce is a solid recipe for the main feature of a lasagna, so stick to that 🙂