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.
Easy to follow recipe. So good.
Easy as 123.. Love it, your directions were perfect for an amateur like myself. Excellent!
This is the best homemade lasagna I’ve ever made and tasted. Thank you so much for sharing! I will definitely make this again. I was also thinking of using eggplant as an alternative to the pasta for next time. Let’s see how it goes! I’m excited.
Made this twice – this latest time i doubled the recipe and had way too many noodles! Realizing now your recipe is for a 9×13, and i thought I’d double it and make two 9×9 (square) pans. But i had a tiny bit of cheese and meat leftover (enough to make 4 mini meatloaf tins) and yah…a dozen+ noodles.
Anyway, can you please tell me what the trick is to put the ricotta mixture on!? If i spread the lasagna sheets move. Is Dollop the way to go? Maybe uncooked as mentioned in the other comments is the trick. Maybe this is why my mom never did ricotta haha
For the ricotta we kind of dollop and spread slightly, you can kind of see what I mean in the process images. It doesn’t have to entirely cover the noodles as it melts when baked and spreads even more. I hope that helps!
I’ve made this recipe multiple times before. to me the easiest method was just to mix the meat, sauces and ricotta together and spread it between noodle layers. To me this ensured it was all spread evenly and not to thick in one area.
10/10! I made one modification – recently heard this tip on my favorite podcast (What Have You) and didn’t boil the noodles beforehand. I added just a lil water (enough to clean out all the sauce from the jar) to the sauce and the noodles came out perfectly al dente and less work/clean up! So much moisture in the sauce layers and covering the dish with foil lets the noodles cook up perfectly in the bake time.
Ooooooh uncooked, maybe that’s the way to go!
I plan on using the uncooked method on noodles, as we are making for our Meals on Wheels clients and I have 43, which we’ll be making more than one pan!
Perfect! I haven’t made Lasagna in years so this was a really easy recipe to follow. It was a huge hit with the family and makes alot! I will probably add more salt and pepper to the meat when browning, I wasn’t sure how salty it would end up being. Definitely a keeper recipe! p.s. I use Breakstone 2% cottage cheese, not a fan of ricotta
this recipe made seem like a pro I followed the directions exactly everyone loved it. thank you so much 🙏
Hi! How would the cooking instructions change if you baked it from frozen?
I would thaw it in the refrigerator overnight. And then if the lasagna is cold from the fridge it may need an extra 20 minutes or so of cooking time.
This is the best homemade lasagna we’ve tried and I make it regularly for our large family!
I am a 72 yr old man who has just begun to help his wife out more by cooking some meals myself. I love lasagna so I wanted to tackle a home made recipe. I really liked the look of how this whole recipe is presented here on the web page so I decided to go for it. My first time through took a bit longer, but all the effort was well worth it! Excellent!! 5 star! Delicious! My wife agrees. I think me making it enhanced the flavor for her haha! I will be making it for a larger family dinner this Sunday after church! Thank you for your recipe! Learning to do more, Chuck
Hi Chuck, thank you so much for the lovely comment. And yes food made with love does taste better. Happy cooking!
This is my go to lasagna recipe! Growing up on pre-made, I had no idea what I was missing. This is easy and fun to make! Thanks again for yet another amazing recipe!
Easy to make, reheats well. My only note would be adding more sauce/meat and cheese mixture and a bit more seasoning. I would recommend this recipe!
I made this for my friends and family and everyone raved about the flavor saying that it was the best lasagna that they had ever had, better than a restaurant! I added freshly grated lemon peel to my ricotta and a 14.5oz can of crushed tomatoes to my sauce. I also used Cantella’s hot Italian sausage and a low moisture mozzarella.
Can you use dried parsley instead of fresh? Stuck in a snow storm and want to try your recipe, but I don’t have any fresh parsley!
Christina, dried parsley will work just fine! You’ll need about 1 ½ tablespoons.
Tastes fantastic and super easy to make. Used oven ready noodles instead and had no issues at all!
This recipe was excellent and simple. I used cottage cheese because I think it has more flavor than traditional ricotta. I used a little more mozzarella and parmesan than called for and about 48 ounces of sauce. It wasn’t runny and cut beautifully after a 15 minute rest. When reheated, it was even more delicious. I highly recommend this recipe.
Can I do the last step the next day when we are ready to eat it?
Yes, this recipe is great to make ahead. You can prep it up to step 5 and then bake when ready to enjoy.
I tweaked the recipe due to the impending snowstorm. It looks outstanding! We don’t eat meat on Fridays so I plan on warming and eating tomorrow. Can’t wait to dive in! Looks delicious!
This is the holy grail of lasagna recipes that I will now be making forever! This was my first time making lasagna and I followed the recipe exactly except I left out the meat to make it vegetarian. My super picky kids cleaned their plates and asked for seconds! And my Italian husband said it was the best lasagna he’s ever had….even better than his moms! I’ll try it with meat next time!
Hi! Would I be able to use “oven-ready” lasagna noodles? The directions for those say to just add a 1/4 cup or water or milk to the pan.
Many readers have successfully used oven ready noodles with no problem! We haven’t tested them so I can’t say for sure, but some readers have added up to 1/2 cup of water. Let us know how it goes!