Ingredients
Method
- Preheat oven to 350°.
Meat Sauce
- Break up and brown Italian sausage in a large pan. When no longer pink add diced onion and cook until soft. Then add red bell pepper and cook for 1-2 minutes. Salt and pepper to taste.
- Reserve 1/2 c. of pasta sauce and add remaining pasta sauce to the meat mixture. Add dried basil, garlic powder and 1 tsp Italian seasoning. Simmer for few minutes while you combine the cheese layer.
Cheese Mixture
- Place egg, cottage cheese, 1 tsp. of Italian seasoning and Parmesan cheese in a bowl and mix well until combined.
Layer Lasagna in Dish
- Spray large 9x13 baking dish with cooking spray. Spread reserved pasta sauce in the bottom of the baking dish. Then place 4 dry, uncooked lasagna noodles side by side on top of the pasta sauce. Try not to layer the noodles on top of each other.
- Spread hot meat sauce on top of the layer of dry lasagna noodles. Then top with another layer of dry noodles.
- Spread the cheese mixture on top of the dry lasagna noodles and top with 1 to 1 1/2 cups of grated mozzarella cheese. Top with another layer of dry lasagna noodles.
- Spread another layer of the hot meat sauce on top of the dry lasagna noodles, top with more mozzarella cheese. Then place another layer of dry lasagna noodles.
- Cover the final layer of lasagna noodles with the remaining meat sauce.
- Cover the baking pan with foil, shiny side towards the lasagna.
- Bake in a 350° oven for 1 hour.
- Carefully remove foil from the baking dish, top with more mozzarella cheese. Return lasagna to oven and bake uncovered for another 15 minutes at 350°.
- Remove lasagna from oven and let rest at least 10 minutes before serving.
Notes
To make this lasagna recipe easier, I do not precook the noodles.
I've tried the oven ready lasagna noodles and the traditional lasagna noodles using this method and both work equally well.
Italian sausage is my preferred meat when making lasagna. I love the flavor it adds to the lasagna. I also preferred the Hot Italian sausage, but that's a personal preference. It just depends on how spicy you like your food. But you can also use lean ground beef or leave it out all together if you'd like. You may want to add more cheese to the recipe if you do not add any meat.
In a pinch I've used traditional hot Jimmy Dean sausage and that's delicious too.
There are times when I've made my own marinara sauce, for my lasagna recipe. But I find that adding a few seasonings to bottle pasta sauce has equally good results and it's a lot easier.
I've tried both ricotta cheese and cottage cheese in my lasagna recipe, my personal preference is cottage cheese. It's easy to switch and use ricotta if you prefer.