Ruth’s Easy Lasagna
This easy lasagna recipe comes highly recommended!
By Yankee Magazine|Mar 23 2022|
This quick and easy lasagna recipe comes highly recommended. The prepared sauce makes it quicker and easier to fix than most lasagna recipes, and the results are better, our tester reports, than many restaurant versions. A good make-ahead dinner, too.
Yield:
8 to 10 servings
Ingredients
16 ounces dried lasagna noodles
1-1/4 pounds chuck, chopped
1 bottle (26 ounces) spaghetti sauce with mushrooms
1 tablespoon white sugar
1-1/2 pounds cottage cheese
3 eggs, lightly beaten
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
3/4 pound mozzarella cheese, shredded
Grated Parmesan cheese
1 cup milk
Instructions
Cook the lasagna noodles according to the package directions, being sure to add a teaspoon of oil to the cooking water. Rinse and drain.
In a nonstick skillet, brown the meat and drain off any excess fat. Heat the sauce and add the meat to the sauce along with the sugar.
Combine the cottage cheese, eggs, and cayenne.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. To assemble the lasagna, spoon a thin layer of sauce on the bottom of a 9-inch by 13-inch pan. Place a layer of noodles, another thin layer of sauce, a layer of the cottage cheese mixture, then the mozzarella. Repeat until the pan is filled. End with a final layer of sauce and Parmesan cheese. Gently pour milk over the top. Cover with foil and bake for 1 hour. Uncover and let stand for 5 to 10 minutes before cutting into serving-size pieces.
Made it for the first time, and they all loved it!! Will be making it for our Christmas Eve open house.
It tastes great and is very easy to make.
Cayenne, cottage cheese, and bottled spaghetti sauce are what’s wrong with this recipe. If you’re going to make lasagna, make it right. Might I suggest buying a real Italian chef’s cookbook. Look up VITA GRECO on the web. You won’t be sorry–she was featured on FOOD NETWORK on Cooking Live!
I think you miss the point of this very tasty and quick recipe…
Not to Italians.
Agreed!
Easy to make and very good!
Very easy to prepare, and add your own ingredients … two thumbs up!
I use cottage cheese mixed with sour cream.. and my own sauce made with crushed tomatoes very easy
I used to make my lasagna with cottage cheese it tastes great. Homemade sauce doesn’t take long and doesn’t contain sugar.
Even quicker if you use oven-ready lasagna noodles!
I tried them last time I made lasagna, I didn’t care for them. They were very starchy and thinner, not much of a pasta flavor at all. I will not waste the money again. In my opinion they ruined the lasagna.
I do not understand substituting ricotta with cottage cheese. Is there a difference in taste? Cottage cheese does not make the recipe easier.
Cottage cheese in place of ricotta – NO!
You’re right we need ricotta!
This is a recipe for “mock lasagna”. Italian lasagna uses delicious, creamy, ricotta. The ultimate creaminess, use whole milk ricotta. But never, ever, ever use cottage cheesebecause that isn’t lasagna. It’s a baked pasta dish.
I think this recipe calls for cottage cheese because most people have it on hand rather than ricotta. I know that here in England ricotta cheese isn’t as easy to obtain as cottage cheese.
I have discovered (not a secret either) just how unbelievably easy it is to make ricotta. I had read that once you try homemade ricotta you’ll never go back to store bought. That is the truth too. It is so simple and makes a wonder dessert with fig jam. Try Martha Stewarts recipe for homemade ricotta. Have fun.
My mom always made lasagna with cottage cheese. I could never understand when recipes called for ricotta!
Cottage cheese and jarred sauce? Puh-lease. Stick to baked beans, pot roast, and apple pie, Yankee.
good gravy, don’t like , don’t make it but don’t be so ugly and insulting
You are obviously non Italian. If you are going to cook Italian than cook correctly
Homemade lasagna is with ricotta and a kettle of homemade sauce simmering and no no cook noodles. This recipe is desiccation to the the Italians
Agree!!
In my bachelor days I used to make lasagna from the “I Hate to Cook Book.” This recipe is much like it. It was good! Think I’ll make it again.
I appreciate that some folks are purists. I have the same problem with my ethnic Swedish meatballs. All sorts of people have “Swedish meatball” recipes that are fully non-authentic, but they might taste good as a “meatball-my-way” like this lasagna recipe. There’s room at the stove side for many. To Ruth, I say, you go girl!!
I vote for a 50/50 mix of beef and Italian sausage.
This was delicious and better than any Italian restaurant i have been to. I always have used cottage cheese as well as my mother. I do not like ricotta! Hate the taste and texture! I also prefer my sauce with no chunks! At 57 I still pick out any chunks, so I choose a basic sauce. Thank you for this!