Classic Italian Lasagna
The best, most appetizing, authentic lasagna — for the whole family! Classic Italian lasagna is a true star of Mediterranean cooking. It's hearty, fragrant, and incredibly delicious, layering ground meat, vegetables, and pasta all under a silky creamy sauce.
Cooking method
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Step 1:
How do you make classic Italian lasagna? Start with the Bolognese sauce. Gather the ingredients for it. Use mixed ground meat — beef and pork — and, if you like, add some celery stalks. Instead of fresh tomatoes I used ready-made crushed tomato purée. For seasoning I used an Italian herb blend; if you're using separate herbs, reach for oregano, basil, thyme, and rosemary.
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Step 2:
How do you make the Bolognese? Peel the onion and cut it into small dice.
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Step 3:
Dice the peeled carrot as well.
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Step 4:
And the bell pepper.
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Step 5:
Heat a skillet and add the olive oil. Add the onion and sauté over medium heat until translucent.
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Step 6:
Add the carrot and pepper to the onion and cook, stirring, for a few more minutes.
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Step 7:
Add the ground meat to the vegetables, breaking it up well with a spatula. Cook everything together for about 5 minutes.
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Step 8:
Add salt, pepper, and the herbs. Pour in the tomato purée. If you're using fresh tomatoes, peel them, chop them finely, and add them to the meat with a little water. Stir. Simmer the sauce over low heat for 10 minutes.
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Step 9:
Next, make the béchamel. Gather the ingredients. Milk of any fat content works. Use real butter — good quality, with no milk-fat substitutes.
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Step 10:
How do you make béchamel? In a heavy-bottomed pan, melt the butter without letting it boil. Add the flour and whisk well. Cook the flour for a few minutes over low heat until it smells lightly nutty, stirring the whole time so it doesn't scorch.
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Step 11:
Whisking constantly, pour in the milk in a thin stream. Cook the sauce until it thickens, about 5 minutes, stirring vigorously the whole time. Then add salt, pepper, and nutmeg, and stir.
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Step 12:
Keep cooking the sauce to the right consistency — it should be like thick sour cream. Béchamel is best used right after cooking, since a skin forms on top as it cools. If you make it ahead, press plastic wrap directly onto the surface.
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Step 13:
Now assemble the lasagna. You'll need dry lasagna sheets and hard cheese. My lasagna sheets are the no-boil kind. If yours need boiling, cook them per the package directions.
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Step 14:
Grate the cheese on a fine grater.
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Step 15:
Spread a layer of béchamel over the bottom of the baking dish.
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Step 16:
Lay down the lasagna sheets.
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Step 17:
Spread more béchamel over the sheets.
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Step 18:
The next layer is the Bolognese.
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Step 19:
Sprinkle cheese over it.
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Step 20:
Repeat the layering: béchamel, sheets, béchamel, Bolognese, cheese. The number of layers depends on the depth of your dish — I repeated it three times. To cover the whole surface, you can break the sheets to fill the gaps. The top layer is always Bolognese with cheese on top.
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Step 21:
Bake the lasagna at 375°F (190°C) for 30–40 minutes. The top will turn golden and the cheese will melt. Take it out of the oven and serve right away. Enjoy!
- Any cheese works here — hard, semi-hard, or soft like mozzarella. What matters is that it's tasty, good quality, free of milk-fat substitutes, and melts well.
- Keep in mind every oven is different, so the temperature and time may vary from what's given here. For any baked dish to turn out well, it helps to know your oven's quirks.
- Every oil is only good up to a certain point — its smoke point, above which it starts to burn and forms harmful compounds. It's worth knowing each oil's smoke point so you can pick the best one for frying.
Caloric content of the products possible in the composition of the dish
- Onion - 41 kcal/100g
- Tomatoes - 23 kcal/100g
- Whole cow's milk - 68 kcal/100g
- Milk 3.5% fat content - 64 kcal/100g
- Milk 3.2% fat content - 60 kcal/100g
- Milk 1.5% fat content - 47 kcal/100g
- Concentrated milk 7.5% fat content - 140 kcal/100g
- Milk 2.5% fat content - 54 kcal/100g
- Sweet pepper - 27 kcal/100g
- Carrots - 33 kcal/100g
- Dried carrots - 275 kcal/100g
- Boiled carrots - 25 kcal/100g
- Dutch cheese - 352 kcal/100g
- Swiss cheese - 335 kcal/100g
- Russian cheese - 366 kcal/100g
- Kostroma cheese - 345 kcal/100g
- Yaroslavsky cheese - 361 kcal/100g
- Altai cheese 50% fat content - 356 kcal/100g
- Soviet cheese - 400 kcal/100g
- Cheese 'steppe' - 362 kcal/100g
- Uglich cheese - 347 kcal/100g
- Poshekhonsky cheese - 350 kcal/100g
- Lambert cheese - 377 kcal/100g
- Appnzeller cheese with 50% fat content - 400 kcal/100g
- Chester cheese with 50% fat content - 363 kcal/100g
- Edamer cheese with 40% fat content - 340 kcal/100g
- Cheese with mushrooms of 50% fat content - 395 kcal/100g
- Emmental cheese with 45% fat content - 420 kcal/100g
- Gouda cheese with 45% fat content - 356 kcal/100g
- Aiadeus cheese - 364 kcal/100g
- Dom blanc cheese (semi-hard) - 360 kcal/100g
- Lo spalmino cheese - 61 kcal/100g
- Cheese 'etorki' (sheep, hard) - 401 kcal/100g
- White cheese - 100 kcal/100g
- Fat yellow cheese - 260 kcal/100g
- Altai cheese - 355 kcal/100g
- Kaunas cheese - 355 kcal/100g
- Latvian cheese - 316 kcal/100g
- Limburger cheese - 327 kcal/100g
- Lithuanian cheese - 250 kcal/100g
- Lake cheese - 350 kcal/100g
- Gruyere cheese - 396 kcal/100g
- Ground black pepper - 255 kcal/100g
- Whole durum wheat flour fortified - 333 kcal/100g
- Whole durum wheat flour, universal - 364 kcal/100g
- Flour krupchatka - 348 kcal/100g
- Flour - 325 kcal/100g
- Butter 82% - 734 kcal/100g
- Amateur unsalted butter - 709 kcal/100g
- Unsalted peasant butter - 661 kcal/100g
- Peasant salted butter - 652 kcal/100g
- Melted butter - 869 kcal/100g
- Mixed minced meat - 351 kcal/100g
- Salt - 0 kcal/100g
- Spices dry - 240 kcal/100g
- Olive oil - 913 kcal/100g
- Lasagna sheets - 337 kcal/100g
- Nutmeg - 556 kcal/100g
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- Лазанья
- Спагетти
- Meat second course
- Meat in the oven
- Minced meat
- Made of solid cheese
- Milk
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- From carrots
- From tomato
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- No eggs
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