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Related: Culture Forums, Support ForumsLasagna layers. Does the order really matter? An epicurean existential question.
All recipes seem to agree to layer a small portion of the meat sauce on the bottom, obviously to keep from sticking to the pan. But from there, the common practice appears to be, noodles, ricotta or cottage cheese, meat sauce, mozzarella and Parmesan cheese, repeat two more times.
I have been doing it another way. Noodles, meat sauce, ricotta or cottage cheese, mozzarella, followed by Parmesan cheese. This is how the top layer ends up, anyway, so I do it for all three layers. In the end, does it really matter?
Hugh_Lebowski
(33,643 posts)It's more about the sauce than anything else anyway IMHO.
TBH, Stouffer's Meat Lovers is fairly bomb, cheap, and super-easy. That's how I usually go, frankly.
Docreed2003
(16,817 posts)We eat it around our house, mainly because it tastes great and the kids will eat it as well!
Hugh_Lebowski
(33,643 posts)I dig the regular Stouffers Lasagna, it's damn good ... but the Meat Lovers, with the Sausage in it? Seriously one of the greatest 'frozen dinners' of all time. So friggin' tasty. I try to get it only every few trips to the store cause it's really not healthy for an old man like me, and I'll friggin eat it every meal til the leftovers are gone, I don't GAF
applegrove
(118,023 posts)Last edited Tue Jul 13, 2021, 01:53 AM - Edit history (1)
of that. I use a mix of mozzarella, white cheddar and havarti as the cheese. Hunts tomato sauce from a can. Cottage cheese mixed with an egg and spinach. And sprinkle dried tarragon everywhere. Parmisan on the very top then more tarragon. So cottage cheese is in the first layer, and roasted vegetables on the second. Meat on the bottom and the third layer. Cheese, tomato sauce and tarragon and lasagna noodles on every layer. People love it.
2naSalit
(86,072 posts)applegrove
(118,023 posts)I used to always make sure my parents had one or two in their freezer when i visited or we had guests. I once tried adding fiddleheads .... piew piew piew don't do that.
I have used wild vegetation but never fiddleheads. I think I'll work with garden veggies until I figure out the flavors.
Hugh_Lebowski
(33,643 posts)I do kinda prefer ricotta to cottage cheese but if someone else made it that way I'd still eat it ...
RockRaven
(14,784 posts)goes from the bottom up:
Noodles
Ricotta+other stuff
Mozzarella
Meat sauce
Repeat etc.
Cooked in a clear glass Pyrex, usually a 9X13 size, it never sticks. Ever. Don't know where the idea of a bottom layer of meat sauce being necessary to avoid sticking comes from. Maybe it is tasty, but necessary?
Baked Potato
(7,733 posts)smirkymonkey
(63,221 posts)etc. I sometimes use a sausage/ground beef mixture and sometimes do a vegetarian version w/ spinach. I took lessons from my Italian grandmother and great aunts, so it's pretty authentic.
PoindexterOglethorpe
(25,750 posts)Cottage cheese is the work of the devil.
Trailrider1951
(3,409 posts)She always used cottage cheese in her lasagna. I think it was because back in the '40's and '50's ricotta was hard to find in most grocery stores in Columbus, Ohio. Cottage cheese was everywhere. She used to buy the large curd cheese and drain it in cheese cloth before using it in the recipe. Today, I still use large curd cottage cheese in my lasagna, and I have had no complaints. YMMV.
PoindexterOglethorpe
(25,750 posts)unavailable. So she gets a pass.
I bet she was a wonderful cook! My mom, god love her, not so much. The reason I started cooking for the family by the time I was seven was that Mom just wasn't very good at it. Don't get me wrong. She had many fine traits, but cooking was not one of them.
intrepidity
(7,241 posts)but the typical recipe order that you described seems to put cheese next to the pasta, and I wonder if the idea is to prevent the pasta from absorbing too much liquid from the sauce, maybe to preserve an al dente pasta?
The oil from the cheese may play a similar role that mayo plays in a sandwich--to prevent the bread from getting soggy.
Although, the bottom layer of sauce defeats this somewhat... perhaps why that sauce layer is usually very thin.
2naSalit
(86,072 posts)All the points you make. I have been thinking this out since last night and I have concluded that it may be, in addition to your points, be that when serving, a layer of pasta at the bottom makes it a neat piece of the whole thing, like a custard pie. That may be the primary purpose of pasta in the bottom. The only lasagna I have ever made was at a pretty good pizzeria, we sold a lot of it, we always put a little marinara sauce at the bottom then pasta... I don't recall what came next, though. It was a long time ago.
Baitball Blogger
(46,576 posts)pasta, than it is to glob it on the meat sauce and spread it.