Pinoy Meat Lasagna

Pinoy Meat Lasagna

INGREDIENTS:
SAUCE:
1 28oz can of crushed tomatoes (diced tomatoes work as well if you like your sauce more chunky)

1 28oz can of spaghetti sauce

1 6oz can of tomato paste

1.5 lbs of ground beef (I like my sauce meaty but if you want less meat, you can cut this down)

1 bell pepper diced into small pieces (I used a red one, you can use red or green based on your preference)

1 large yellow onion diced into small pieces

5 cloves of garlic crushed

2 tablespoons white sugar

1 tablespoon dried basil

1 tablespoon dried oregano

2 tablespoons fresh parsley chopped

salt and pepper to taste
LASAGNA

1 box of lasagna noodles (about 12) – I like the no boil ones since it’s easier to handle them when they are stiff
1 egg
23 oz of ricotta cheese
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
2 tablespoons of fresh parsley chopped
1 lb shredded mozzarella cheese
1 cup shredded Parmesan cheese

DIRECTIONS:
To make the sauce:

1. Finely chop the onions and peppers and garlic. In a large pot, saute the onion, pepper, garlic and the ground beef until the ground beef is cooked through. You want the beef to be in fine pieces. You can remove the grease if you want (I do) but it’s your choice.

2. Add into the large pot that contains the onion, peppers, garlic, and beef mixture the cans of tomatoes, sauce, and tomato paste. Stir. Then add in the sugar, basil, oregeno, parlsey and salt and pepper. Stir these seasonings into the sauce.

3. Cover the pot and let the meat sauce simmer. Simmer on low heat for 1 hour and 30 minutes This is the ideal simmer time but not mandatory. If you don’t have time it will still be great after one hour of simmering. I will sometimes make this sauce and refrigerate it after it finishes simmering. I will use the meat sauce the next day to put the rest of this recipe together. For some reason Italian meat sauce taste even better the next day. But that’s up to you.
To make the lasagna:

1.Soak the lasagna noodles in hot water for about 15 minutes. (it softens them up) – this is required if you use the traditional noodles. If you use the no boil, you can skip this, but find it helps soften the noodles but not too much.

2. In a large mixing bowl, combine the ricotta cheese, the nutmeg, fresh parsley and egg. Mix the ingredients together with a spoon.

The following steps will outline a 3 layer lasagna. Depending on your noodle sizes, your pan, this might be different.

3. In a 9 x13 inch baking dish, layer the bottom of your dish with some of your sauce mixture (about 2 cups) until the bottom is nicely covered. this will help prevent the noodles from sticking to the bottom of the pan.

4. Remove the noodles from the hot water bath, shaking off the excess water. Place a layer of noodles on top of the sauce base in your pan. You want to just slightly overlap the noodles. For a three layer, this should be 1/3 of your noodles.

5. Spread 1/2 of the ricotta cheese mixture over the noodles.

6. Spread some sauce over the cheese mixture

7.Sprinkle about 1/3 of your mozzarella cheese on top.

8. Layer 1/3 of your noodles again

9. Spread the remaining 1/2 of the ricotta mixture onto the noodles

10. Layer in more sauce.

11. Sprinkly 1/3 of mozzarella cheese on top

12. Layer remaining noodles on top

13. Add sauce on top – so it covers the noodles completely

14. Sprinkle the mozzarella and parmesean cheese on top.

15. Cover pan with aluminum foil

16. Bake for 25 minutes covered in preheated oven at 350 degrees.

17. Remove aluminum foil and bake for another 25 minutes uncovered or until golden brown and bubbly.

18. Let rest for about 5-10 minutes before serving.