According to food blogger Kelli Foster, she’s come up with a recipe for ‘The Most Delicious Lasagna of All Time’. But I have some comments and suggestions to make which may result in an even more delectable version of the Italian classic…
Kelli’s ‘Most Delicious Lasagna of All Time’: I have some comments and suggestions…
What makes it so ‘all-time delicious’?
Kelli shares three tips/hacks that she says elevate her (soon to be famous?) Lasagna above the crowd…
Bolognese Sauce
Make a rich, thick Bolognese sauce, rather than the usual ‘no-name’ gound-meat filling, for the pro-tein layers. It’s more work, Kelli agrees, but not THAT much more. And it’s worth it.
Béchamel Sauce
Forget everything those heavily promoted lasagna recipes thoughtfully provided by cheese compan-ies say about Ricotta. Real Lasagna is made with a thick, rich Béchamel (white) sauce. With just a pinch of nutmeg and a good grating of Parmesan cheese.
Soak the Noodles!
This one I’d never heard of before… Soak the noodles in hot water until they’re tender and soft all the way through. They should put up no resistance when you try to bend them. But they should not be fully cooked, either. Use this technique with regular dry Lasagna noodles. As Kelli’s recipe ex-plains, ‘instant’ or ‘no-boil’ noodles can be used, but following quite different instructions.
The usual suspects…
Kelly makes all the usual food-blogger comments about make-ahead and freezing tips. She credits Ina Garten with the ‘soak the noodles’ tip. And dear to my heart, she goes ahead and calls for canned and dry ingredients in place of more expensive, more-effort equivalents. Because in this dish, even the pickiest critic won’t notice the difference.
My take
I’ve been using Béchamel Sauce in my Lasagnas for ages. Though there is (I seem to recall) at least one Lasagna recipe on this site that calls for a cream cheese-Ricotta sauce. Fuggedabuddit… And consider Kelli’s recipe an upgrade on my ‘Best’ Lasagna recipe.
I always use a Bolognese sauce (or facsimile) in my Lasagnas. There’s absolutely no substitute, if you want to label your creation ‘classic’
Use the ‘soak the noodles’ hack for any large pasta you employ in an oven-baked recipe. Remember… The pasta will finish cooking to perfection in the oven…
~ Maggie J.