Homemade Lasagna is a classic that every cook should have in their rotation. Tender sheets of pasta, a cheese filling, and a rich meaty tomato sauce make the perfect dish!
While there are a few steps to this recipe, it’s easy to make and has huge flavor. This dish can be made ahead of time and freezes well either before or after baking!
How to Make Lasagna
Homemade lasagna may have a few steps, but each step is easy – and I assure you it’s worth the time; the perfect Italian meal!
The ingredients in this recipe are all things you know and it’s not difficult at all! All you’ll need for this easy lasagna recipe is one pan, one bowl, and a 9×13 baking dish!
A quick overview of the layers:
- Cheese Filling Mix the ricotta and cheeses (per recipe below) with an egg in a bowl, and set aside. No ricotta? No problem, cottage cheese works just fine in this recipe!
- Meat Sauce Brown the onion, garlic, and meat in a pot on the stovetop. Add the pasta sauce and tomato paste & simmer a few minutes.
- Layer Together Layer the meat sauce and cheese mixture with noodles and bake until bubbling
SPINACH LASAGNA To make a spinach lasagna, squeeze out most of the moisture of defrosted frozen spinach and add it along with the cheese layer. Lasagna ingredients don’t have to be limited to the ones you see here.
Substitute meats or different cheeses, or try different meat sauce variations.
How to Layer Lasagna
Once you have prepared the meat sauce and cheeses, you’re ready to layer. This is the order of layers:
- sauce – noodles – cheese
- sauce – noodles – cheese
- sauce – noodles – cheese
- noodles – sauce (bake) – cheese
- Spread about a cup of meat sauce into a 9×13 pan. Add a layer of noodles.
- Top the noodles with some of the cheese mixture.
- Repeat the layers, ending with a layer of noodles and sauce
- Cover with foil and bake.
- Remove foil, top with mozzarella and parmesan and bake another 15 minutes.
How Long to Bake
Baking time lasagna for this recipe is about one hour total. To get that perfect browned cheese topping, you’ll need to bake it in two stages.
- Layer, cover it tightly in foil to retain the moisture.
- Once cooked, remove the foil, top with cheese, and return to the oven for another 15 minutes, or until the top is browned and your easy lasagna is bubbling.
Important Tip: Let the lasagna sit/rest for at least 15 minutes once removed from the oven (even 30-45 minutes is fine). This will keep it from becoming runny and help it to keep its shape when cut.
Resting is not required when reheating.
Serve this easy lasagna with a chunk of Homemade Garlic Bread.
We love serving a classic lasagna dinner, complete with a caesar salad or Italian salad and dinner rolls slathered in Homemade Garlic Butter. It’s the world’s best meal!
Make Ahead
Lasagna can be prepared ahead of time and refrigerated up to 2 days before baking. It can also be frozen before or after baking.
To Freeze
Lasagna is one of the best meals to make ahead and freeze. Double or triple the recipe and freeze some for another day. Defrost in the refrigerator overnight and bake as directed.
To Reheat Lasagna
If you’ve frozen leftovers, pop them in the oven at 350°F covered, until reheated. This should take about 30 minutes! Of course, leftovers are perfectly heated in the microwave too!
More Italian Favorites
- Spaghetti Carbonara – quick
- Chicken Lasagna – 5 star recipe
- Baked Rigatoni Pasta
- Baked Ziti
- Easy Chicken Parmesan – personal favorite
- Spaghetti and Meatballs
Did you enjoy this Homemade Lasagna? Be sure to leave a rating and a comment below!
Easy Homemade Lasagna
Ingredients
- 12 lasagna noodles uncooked
- 4 cups mozzarella cheese shredded and divided
- ½ cup parmesan cheese shredded and divided
Tomato Sauce
- ½ pound lean ground beef
- ½ pound Italian sausage
- 1 onion diced
- 2 cloves garlic minced
- 36 ounces pasta sauce *see note
- 2 tablespoons tomato paste
- 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
Cheese Mixture
- 2 cups ricotta cheese
- ¼ cup fresh parsley chopped
- 1 egg beaten
Instructions
- Heat oven to 350°F. Cook pasta al dente according to package directions. Rinse under cold water and set aside.
- Brown beef, sausage, onion and garlic over medium high heat until no pink remains. Drain any fat.
- Stir in pasta sauce, tomato paste, Italian seasoning. Simmer 5 minutes.
- Make Cheese Mixture by combining 1 ½ cups mozzarella, ¼ cup parmesan cheese, ricotta, parsley, and egg.
- Add 1 cup meat sauce to a 9x13 pan. Top with 3 lasagna noodles. Layer with ⅓ of the Cheese Mixture and 1 cup of meat sauce. Repeat twice more.Finish with 3 noodles topped with remaining sauce.
- Cover with foil and bake 45 minutes.
- Uncover, sprinkle with remaining cheese (2 ½ cups mozzarella cheese and ¼ cup parmesan), and bake an additional 15 minutes or until browned and bubbly. Broil 2-3 minutes if desired.
- Rest 10-15 minutes before cutting.
Video
Notes
Nutrition Information
Nutrition information provided is an estimate and will vary based on cooking methods and brands of ingredients used.
Course Casserole, Main Course, Pasta
Cuisine Italian© SpendWithPennies.com. Content and photographs are copyright protected. Sharing of this recipe is both encouraged and appreciated. Copying and/or pasting full recipes to any social media is strictly prohibited. Please view my photo use policy here.
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Can I use other cheese? And notricotta cheese ? For the lasagna
Sure, you could try cottage cheese instead.
Good, but DEFINITELY need to DOUBLE the tomato/meat sauce portions if you want more than a layer and topping…
Just tried to make this. Sadly there wasn’t enough meat sauce to do this recipe in an 9×13 pan! Will try again using a smaller baking dish l. Disappointed
Excellent! Easy to make and so delicious!!
I’m Hispanic, and I’ve never made lasagna before! I was so nervous that it wouldn’t come out right! All my family loved it, even my husband who doesn’t eat much pasta said it was great! I did add a bit of oregano, but other than that I followed everything the recipe said. I’m definitely going to check out some more recipes to try out.
Great recipe! I would definitely add more sauce. Just a little too dry otherwise great.
Hi! This recipe looks wonderful. I would like your opinion on using cottage cheese instead of ricotta. I find ricotta on the dry side. Your thoughts? I live your recipes.
Cottage cheese should work well in this recipe. We would love to hear how it turns out for you, Diane.
Delicious ! My first attempt at making lasagna. I followed recipe and it came out great. Thanks
I Just love those recepies, Please send me your site or easy recepies by email i am widow live alone,
Hi Rosie, Thank you for visiting! To receive our newsletters, you can sign up here or scroll down to the bottom of the post and you will see a signup box.
My rating is in anticipation of actually eating it tomorrow night with our friends. My question is about the cheese to be added after baking. I bought 2 x 16 oz balls of mozzarella (4 cups). Recipe says 2 1/2 cups on top. It looks like a lot. Is it actual weight of cheese or by measuring after grading the cheese? Hope this makes sense. Thank you
You’ll grate the cheese with a grater and then put it into a measuring cup to measure 2 1/2 cups on top. You can add a little bit less if you’d like but I find it to be the perfect amount of baked cheese on top.
This recipe was fabulous! I made a few very minor adjustments, and it was truly the perfect lasagna. I went with a 60% beef/40% mild Italian sausage split, which was a nice balanced combo. I also made a few hours ahead of time and stuck in the refrigerator, so ended up baking for one hour, topping with cheese and back in the oven for 15 minutes, then broiled for about 7-8 minutes to get that golden brown crispy top. Next time, I think I’ll up the cheese mixture proportion just a little bit (perhaps 1/2 cup more would’ve been spot on).
I made this lasagna recipe for my Mother and Family for Mother’s day and it came out fantastic! All my family truly enjoyed this recipe. Thank you for sharing with us!
Hi! I want to make this as a housewarming gift for a friend. What would you recommend I tell them for baking instructions if I plan to make it, freeze it, and give it to them frozen? Thank you!
I would recommend defrosting in the fridge overnight, then baking according to the recipe instructions. Something to note is that is gifting in a disposable foil pan they do not conduct heat properly so add a note to place on a baking sheet to ensure it cooked evenly and in the time listed.
Can you tell me how much is a serving? Thank you! I’ve made this sooo many t uses. Everyone loooves it.
We cut the lasagna into 12 slices so a serving is approximately a 3″x4″ piece of lasagna. Hope that helps!
I AM GOING TO TRY TO MAKE THE LASAGNA.
It’s really simple. My family and friends always ask for my lasagna. Haha. Super good.
So happy everyone is loving it!
Easy and delicious!!
always comes out fantastic… I add spinach in the riccotta and sometimes a zucchini layer. Never any leftovers! Thanks for the easy recipe!
Amazing! I use your recipe every time we cook this!!
Very yummy recipe!! I have made it twice and it turned out great both times. I will say that I doubled the sauce and made half again as much cheese mixture (I think I’ll double that next time too as it was still hard to cover the layers with what I had). So as far as amounts for a 9 x 13 pan I think they are way off in this recipe. So, that’s kind of annoying, but the ingredients themselves make the lasagna turn out great. I do add a bit of crushed fennel and like the depth of flavor that adds (more traditional lasagna flavor to me) and I also added a zucchini, a bell pepper, and a couple cups of spinach to the sauce mixture, which was amazing! I think I’ll be looking for another recipe for better rations for next time if I can find a good one, but will probably use this recipe again as far as ingredients/flavor. :)
Delicious! The ONLY thing I did differently was that I made my own sauce, like I usually do (with unflavored canned tomato sauce, canned diced tomatoes, and my own selection of seasonings and spices), which I condensed down to perfection. Also, I only used ground beef, which I added just a bit of (slightly crushed) fennel to in order to give it that Italian sausage flare! Thanks for the recipe!
Tasty! Very easy to make!
Thanks Holly!!!!