Homemade Lasagna is a family favorite and a great way to feed a crowd.
In this classic lasagna recipe, sheets of pasta are layered with a cheesy filling, a rich meaty tomato sauce, and more cheese and then baked until bubbly and browned.
While there are a few steps, this lasagna recipe is relatively easy to make and has so much flavor.
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This Is Our Go-To Lasagna Recipe Because…
- This recipe has been called the best by many and has thousands of 5-star reviews!
- It uses simple ingredients that you likely have on hand, and it packs big flavor!
- This is an easy lasagna recipe. It requires just one pan, one bowl, and a 9×13 baking dish.
- It reheats well and can be made ahead of time. You can freeze lasagna either before or after baking.
Lasagna Ingredients
- Cheese Filling: For this classic lasagna recipe, the cheese filling has ricotta and parmesan with seasonings. You can make homemade ricotta cheese or replace it with cottage cheese.
- Meat: I use both Italian sausage and ground beef for great flavor. If using all beef, add ¼ teaspoon of fennel seeds and some Italian seasoning to the meat mixture for flavor, or make my homemade Italian sausage.
- Sauce: To keep this sauce quick, I use pasta sauce or marinara sauce (it’s easy to make from scratch with crushed tomatoes and canned tomatoes if you’d prefer). If using store-bought sauce, I love Rao’s for flavor.
Spinach (variation): Spinach is optional but delicious in lasagna. For spinach lasagna, thaw 10oz of frozen spinach, squeeze out the moisture, and add it along with the cheese layer.
How to Make Lasagna
While homemade lasagna may have a few steps, each step is easy – and I assure you it’s worth the time; the perfect Italian meal!
- Boil pasta: In a large pot of salted water boil lasagna noodles per the recipe below.
- Prepare meat sauce: Cook sausage and beef with onion and garlic. Drain well, add the pasta sauce (I love this brand) & simmer it for a few minutes to thicken.
- Combine cheese mixture: Stir the cheese mixture together in a bowl.
- Layer & bake: Layer the meat sauce and cheese mixture with lasagna noodles and bake until the top of the lasagna is golden brown.
How to Layer Lasagna
- Spread about a cup of meat sauce into a 9×13 pan. Add a layer of noodles.
- Top the noodles with some of the ricotta 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 for another 15 minutes.
Once you have prepared the meat sauce and the cheese mixture, you’re ready to layer. This is the order of layers:
- sauce – noodles – cheese
- sauce – noodles – cheese
- sauce – noodles – cheese
- noodles – sauce (bake) – cheese
Serve with a big slice of homemade Garlic Bread and garnish with fresh basil or a couple of tablespoons of parsley. Finish the meal with a Caesar salad or Italian salad.
Holly’s Tips for the Best Lasagna
Here are my tips to ensure this is the best lasagna recipe you’ve ever had!
- Choose a quality pasta sauce.
- Bake this lasagna recipe for one hour.
- Cover it with aluminum foil for most of the cooking time so it doesn’t dry out.
- Add the cheese during the last 15 minutes of cooking so it becomes browned and bubbly.
- Let it rest at least 15 minutes before cutting.
Make Ahead
Lasagna can be prepared ahead of time and refrigerated for up to 2 days before baking. It can also be frozen before or after baking.
To Freeze Lasagna
Lasagna is one of the best meals to make ahead and freeze. Double or triple the recipe and store it tightly wrapped in the freezer for up to 3 months.
Thaw in the refrigerator overnight and bake as directed. If the lasagna is cold from the fridge, it may need an extra 20 minutes or so of cooking time.
How 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 Baked Pasta Recipes
Did you enjoy this Homemade Lasagna? Be sure to leave a rating and a comment below!
Ingredients
- 12 lasagna noodles uncooked
- 2 ½ cups shredded mozzarella cheese
- ¼ cup shredded Parmesan cheese
Tomato Sauce
- ½ pound lean ground beef
- ½ pound Italian sausage
- 1 yellow onion diced
- 2 cloves garlic minced
- 36 ounces pasta sauce *see note
- 2 tablespoons tomato paste
- 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
- ½ teaspoon salt more to taste
Cheese Mixture
- 2 cups ricotta cheese or cottage cheese
- ¼ cup chopped fresh parsley
- 1 large egg beaten
- 1 ½ cups shredded mozzarella cheese
- ¼ cup shredded Parmesan cheese
- ¼ teaspoon salt
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add the lasagna noodles and cook until al dente (firm) according to package directions. Drain, rinse under cold water, and set aside.
- Meanwhile, in a large skillet or Dutch oven, brown the beef, sausage, onion, and garlic over medium-high heat until no pink remains. Drain any fat.
- Stir in the pasta sauce, tomato paste, Italian seasoning, ½ teaspoon of salt, and ¼ teaspoon of black pepper. Simmer uncovered over medium heat for 5 minutes or until slightly thickened. Taste and season with additional salt if desired.
- In a separate medium bowl, combine 1 ½ cups mozzarella cheese, ¼ cup parmesan cheese, ricotta, parsley, egg, and ¼ teaspoon salt.
- Spread 1 cup of the meat sauce in a 9×13 pan or casserole dish. Top it with 3 lasagna noodles. Layer with 1 cup of the ricotta cheese mixture and 1 cup of meat sauce. Repeat twice more. Finish with 3 noodles topped with remaining sauce.
- Cover with foil and bake for 45 minutes.
- Remove the foil and sprinkle the top of the lasagna with 2 ½ cups mozzarella cheese and ¼ cup Parmesan cheese. Bake uncovered for an additional 15 minutes or until browned and bubbly. Broil for 2-3 minutes if desired.
- Rest for at least 15 minutes before cutting.
Video
Notes
- Ricotta cheese can be replaced with cottage cheese.
- Use all beef (or even ground turkey) in place of sausage if needed. If using all beef, add ½ teaspoon Italian seasoning to the meat (and ¼ teaspoon fennel seeds if desired).
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.
This is my second time making this lasagna recipe. What I love about this recipe is that it is homemade, simple and easy to follow. I notice that I had to double the ground beef, italian sausage, and the ricotta cheese to cover the lasagna fully. The first time I made this lasagna, I made it for my family and they loved it. My Dad took some to work and gave some to his co worker and he loved it so much, he asked me to make a whole tray of.lasagna and he would buy it from me. (I would be happy to make it for him but for free. He is a good friend and co worker of my Dads). But I definitely recommend this recipe! Today, we celebrated my boyfriends 33rd birthday early. His family is of Italian descent and they absolutely loved it! I received so much compliments of this lasagna, I couldn’t handle it.
That is so great Sonia! So happy everyone loved it :)
This lasagna was excellent & very easy to make. For some reason, I didn’t seem to have enough of the ricotta cheese for all 3 layers. I had to make another cup of ricotta to complete the last layer. I will definitely be making this again. Thank you for sharing!
I have not yet tried the recipe but intend to. My question is can you freeze left overs?
Absolutely! This recipe freezes well.
Learning to make new dishes
Excellent recipe. Very easy to make. Only thing I’d correct if I may, is the order in which you layer the lasagna. You stated to put meat down, then noodles, then cheese. I believe that it is sauce, noodles, CHEESE (to hold the noodles together better, then meat….and repeat. If you put noodles in first when you pick up the lasagna to serve, the meat will fall apart on the bottom and be left in pan.
4 1/2 hours for me! Good recipe though.
Your math is wrong or I’m missing something. What fo you need 4 cups of mozzarella for. Recipe only asks for 11/2. Same with Parmesan. And only 1 1/2 cups of ricotta. What did I miss.
1½ cups in step 4 and the remainder on top in step 6.
The recipe looks delicious, but nowhere in the recipe is the oven temperature stated. Perhaps this is obvious to experienced cooks, but the rest of us need clues about “the obvious.”
Hi John, you may have missed it but it’s the first instruction on step 1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Enjoy the recipe!
Awesome dinners. I’ve made Thanks.
Amazing! The whole family loved it!
Where does the cinnamon go?
Hi Patty, for this lasagna, we don’t add cinnamon. I hope that helps!
Made it tonight. If I had made it verbatim I would of run out of sauce and ricotta cheese mixture. Still tasted awesome.
ok so while making this recipe I realized I was cooking a pound of each meat instead of half, I had another jar of pasta sauce so I figured I would just add that as well; so I essentially doubled the meat and sauce portion. However as I was assembling my dish I quickly realized I was running out of the meat and sauce! And yes I did use the pan size that this recipe calls for. I had plenty of the cheese mixture but not enough sauce to adequately cover the dish… and mind you I doubled the meat sauce! I’m surprised there aren’t more people reviewing this with the same problem, especially if you follow the recipe as is.
Same thing for me…doubled meat and sauce
I love cooking and baking etc
Hi Holly
When I’m converting your recipes from fluid ounces to metric, do I use imperial fluid oz or US imperial? Are you in the USA? I’m in Canada.
And if I use fresh deli noodles, do I need to adjust liquid?
Can’t wait to try the lasagna.
Thank you.
This will work just fine using fresh deli noodles, no adjustments needed and the fresh pasta does not need to be pre-cooked. 24oz is a liquid measure. Enjoy!
Thank you, delicious recipe!
It was indeed relatively easy to make.
I liked the spinach idea; I added finely chopped fresh spinach instead of the frozen.
I cheated a bit and tried to also follow the “no boil” instructions on my box of noodles, which added some water to the plan, but it still turned out good despite my sabotage. :-) Thanks again!!
So happy it turned out for you Susan!
Made this lasagna on Christmas because we are all sick of turkey. It was absolutely delicious and went together easily. I used no sodium pasta sauce because of husband’s dietary issues and it was perfect. Will definitely make again, although the one pan lasagna looks interesting too. Thanks for sharing your culinary expertise!
Can I use oven ready lasagna? Do I need to adjust the recipe at all?
This would work with oven ready lasagna however I can’t say for sure how to adjust the recipe, it can vary slightly from brand to brand. You may need to thin the sauce a tiny bit. I would suggest looking at the directions for the sauce on the package and making sure you have as much sauce as suggested.
I used oven ready noodles and followed the recipe exactly and it turned out perfect. However I did assemble and refrigerate overnight and cooked the next day. We had it for dinner on Christmas Eve and it was delicious
I love trying new recipes. Thank you.
I would love to receive some delicious recipes
Looking forward to yummy recipes and baking/cooking tips
Hello Holly
Can you cook this recipe a day ahead and refrigerate overnight and reheat the following day, or assemble the day before, refrigerate overnight and then cook? Which would you recommend?
Yes, this can be prepared a day ahead of time. You can cook it either before or after (I personally would prefer it to bake fresh to serve). If it’s chilled from the fridge, it will need extra time to cook and I would suggest removing it from the fridge at least 30 minutes before baking.