Easy No-Boil Lasagna

 

Here's a make-ahead or make-right-now lasagna recipe. You can have this on the dinner table in about 90 minutes, or make it ahead and reheat in about an hour. The trick is to use oven-ready lasagna noodles.

Ingredients:

• 6 oven-ready lasagna noodles, I used half a package of Ronzoni
• 1 jar of prepared pasta sauce, such as Muir Glen (25.5 ounces)
• 3 sweet Italian turkey sausage (or any sausage you like; we use Shady Brook)
• 8 ounces of cottage cheese
• 1 egg
• Handful of chopped fresh herbs, such as parsley, rosemary, oregano, basil (dried is also fine)
• Salt and pepper
• 2 cups or more of grated mozzarella cheese
• 1/2 cup or more of grated Parmesan cheese

Assembly:

First, if you're going to bake on the same day as assembly, preheat oven to 350F.

1. Squeeze sausage out of casings and fry, chopping and moving with a spatula to break it up well and cook evenly.
2. Beat egg in a bowl and combine with cottage cheese, salt & pepper, and chopped herbs.
3. Start layering in a 9x9 inch glass baking pan as follows: put a bit of pasta sauce on the bottom, then 2 noodles. Spread on half the cottage cheese mixture, half the cooked sausage, and pour on more sauce. Then sprinkle on half the grated mozzarella.
4. For the next layer, place 2 more noodles, the other half of the cottage cheese mixture, the other half of the sausage, more sauce, a third of the mozzarella, and half the Parmesan.
5. Finish up with 2 more noodles, a good final layer of sauce, the rest of the mozzarella and the rest of the Parmesan.
6. Cover with foil. At this point you can either refrigerate and bake later, or proceed with baking as follows.
7. Place in the oven for 30 minutes. At that point, remove the foil and bake for 10 more minutes.
8. Secret tip: crank the heat to 450F and bake it uncovered for 10 more minutes. Then remove from the oven (it should be nice and browned and bubbly) and let lasagna rest for at least 5 minutes.
9. Serve! Ideally with a healthy salad, but don't feel bad if this is so delicious it just gets inhaled solo. It is good!

PS I got a ridiculous new app for the iPad that makes photos look like 70s developing mistakes, see above. I think I like it! It's hard to get those strange lens flares and hairs these days. It is cheesy-good, just like lasagna.