Lasagne bolognese is one of my favorite italian dishes next to pizza. It takes quite some time to prepare, though it is worth the effort. At least from time to time.

Ingredients

Bolognese:

• 800g tomatoes
• 500g minced beef
• 1 onion
• 150g carrots
• 1 garlic clove
• fresh thyme
• 100ml red wine
• 1 bay leave
• 10g sugar
• salt & pepper to taste
• olive oil

Bechamel:

• 50g butter
• 50g flour
• 500g milk
• 1 bay leaf
• 50g parmesan
• pepper, nutmeg and salt to taste
• 50g cheese for topping (parmesan or mozzarella)

Note: if you want to top the lasagne off with a bechamel layer double the amount of bechamel.

Pasta sheets:

• 150g fine wheat flour
• 150g wheat semolina
• 1tbsp oil
• 1tsp salt
• 3 eggs

OR

• 300g dried pasta sheets

OR

• fresh pasta dough from about 300g flour.

Instructions

Bolognese

For this lasagna you need about 1kg of bolognese. You can follow this recipe for instructions.

I usually make a lot of bolognese and freeze it. As lasagne is a lot of work anyhow, using frozen bolognese really reduces the effort for this.

Bechamel

Add the butter and the bay leaf to a pot and let it melt. Heat it over medium heat for a while, until the butter stops bubbling. Remove the pot from the heat. The butter can brown a bit, but it must not get dark, or you have to restart. Remove the bay leaf from the butter and whisk in the flour. Put the pot back on the stove.

The next part is tricky for the first time. You want to add a bit of milk at a time and whisk it into the flour mass. Between adding milk, whisk it and let the mass heat up again. You will notice that it will get think quite fast once the temperature rises. Once all your milk is incarcerated add the other ingredients.

Note: taste wise it does not matter if you mess this step up (unless you burn it of course) though the texture can get problematic. If you add too much milk at the beginning, the flour might form lumps, which you do not want in your sauce. They are quite hard to ged rid of afterward but you might be able to save it. Once you added about 150-200g of milk it gets easier and you could potentially add the rest of it at once. However, this would cool down the mass a lot. Bringing it up to temperature afterward is required to thicken the sauce. I found that it is much more likely to burn it than just adding about 50g of milk at a time, let it heat up for a few seconds under constant whisking before adding the next sip of milk.

Pasta Sheets

For fresh pasta sheets the best option is to make fresh pasta dough from about 300g flour. Though the listed recipe with semolina is easier to handle and roll out, just in case you don’t have a pasta maker.

You can use dried sheets as well, though you need to add some hydration to the lasagna. You can either pre cook the sheets for a short time or use a higher hydration in your bechamel and bolognese sauce. In later scenario you should let the lasagna sit for at least 2 hours before baking so the dried sheets can soak up some fluids.

Lasagna

Once all ingredients are ready its time to layer the lasagna. Start with a bit of bolognese, not with a sheet of pasta. This is especially important if you use dried pasta sheets. Afterward, just layer all ingredients. Personally I like to switch between only bolognese and bolognese and bechamel sauce between the pasta sheets. If you have a very thick bolognese sauce you should dip each pasta sheet in water before usage.

Try to keep quite some bechamel for the top layer. It should cover all of the lasagne. If you want you can add an extra 20g of parmesan into the rest of the bechamel sauce before finishing the top layer. This will create an amazing tasting crust without adding extra cheese.

I know most people find that the cheese crust is the best part of lasagne, though I would really suggest giving this version a try. Taste wise it is just amazing.

Put it in the oven at about 180 degrees for 40-50 minutes.

Tips

Depending on how wet your bolognese is you may want to dip all pasta sheets in water before placing them.

Lasagna is a lot of work. Split it up by making the bolognese up front. Its totally fine to use frozen bolognese.