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.
This post may contain affiliate links. Please read our disclosure policy.
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 lasagna is delicious! I forgot to add the tomato paste but I couldn’t even tell when I was eating it. I will definitely be saving this recipe!
This lasagna recipe and sauce recipe were perfection!
PICK THIS RECIPE! I’m a bit picky about my lasagne and this did not disappoint. Turned out gorgeous, firm (in a good way), simple but flavorful. I swapped for “oven ready” noodles, plant-based ground beef (Impossible), and bought too small of a container of pasta sauce so added a can of diced tomatoes to get me to 36oz, and whoa. So good. Thank you for this recipe! I feel like a chef.
Oo this is good to hear that you use oven ready noodles as I just bought this yesterday to to try this recipe today. I’m glad yours turned out well I hope mine does to
Can you use store bought pasta sauce?
Yes!
Not sure if I’m missing something but this only works if you’re using 9 lasagna noodles, not 12. Not enough cheese mixture and about 1 cup short on meat sauce. I used 9 noodles, Rao’s marinara sauce, whole milk ricotta, and whole milk mozzarella cheese and results were FABULOUS!
It looks like this A.L. so that you use all 12 noodles. And as mentioned in the recipe, each layer has about 1 cup of meat sauce. If you prefer more sauce in your lasagna, increase the pasta sauce to 48 oz. I hope this helps!
sauce – noodles – cheese
sauce – noodles – cheese
sauce – noodles – cheese
noodles – sauce (bake) – cheese
Quick question. If you’re using your pasta sauce recipe which already has a diced onion, are you still adding another yellow onion to the sauce?
If making marinara sauce from scratch, you would need 1 cup onion for the sauce and 1 onion for the meat mixture. If using 1 large onion, it should be enough for both. I hope this helps!
Worth the hype!
We used an 80/20 venison pork mixture and it came out bomb! We also did 1.5lbs meat, 48oz of a Garlic Herb pasta sauce, shredded the mozz ourselves (always worth it! If you want creamy cheese, you really can’t buy the shredded cheese, you’ll have to buy the block and shred it), also we added about two tablespoons of the Italian seasoning to really make it pop. The recipe was great! We even had it for breakfast the next day it was that good haha
I am so happy to hear this recipe was a win for you Alissa! Thank you for sharing.
Best lasagna of my life. Litterly in Heven right now
I made it and it was great! Will be making it often. Thank you!
A little time consuming to make! But absolutely delicious! My Mom made it like this in the 1970’s! I Love the recipe and will continue to make it this way! Thank You for sharing!❤️
You’re very welcome Linda! So glad you love the lasagna!
The best
Thank you for the easy and explanations for this delicious plate.I did it n I enjoy it with a home made salad tossed in Olive Oil.Very DELICIOUS.Thank You.
Made this tonight using oven ready lasagna so I didn’t have to do any boiling. It turned out so good! Definitely the best lasagna I’ve ever had/made! Will definitely be making this again!
I’m wondering if you have had any success prepping ahead and freezing? And if so how did that change the cook time?
This recipe freezes well. You can find this information in the post.
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.
Made this lasagna using Rao’s marinara sauce, added exact condiments stated on recipe. Just added a few fresh basil leaves and it came out delicious. Definitely recommend. Used Barilla pasta.
Fantastic recipe!! my husband absolutely loved it and ny picky eater did too! Just a great meal to make over the weekend and have leftovers all throughout the week. thank you so much!
Great lasagne recipe! I used cottage cheese instead of Ricotta, my family still loved it. There are many steps, not difficult, but it does take time to put it all together. Have made this twice already, so good!
This is so delicious! The whole family loved it. Thank you for sharing!
To amend an earlier comment, I did find the recipe hard to read with the ingredient division. I also found it hard to spread one cup of the mixtures over the noodles. I only ended up with using nine noodles. all of that said, this was delicious. It will probably be my go to lasagna recipe.
I re-copied the recipe for myself. It was difficult to follow the first time I made it. My daughter also commented that the recipe wasn’t laid out well. It was much easier to follow the steps after re-copying the recipe.
My Italian Grandmother would mix the cheeses with a small amount of sauce to spread easier.
I wish I read your comment prior to making this. I agree, this works great with 9 noodles otherwise not enough sauce and cheese.
I found it almost impossible for one cup of the cheese mixture or one cup of the meat sauce, mixture to spread across the entire pan. It would’ve been nice for the cheese mixture ingredients to be listed together in the Ingredient list. I found the grouping of the ingredients in the ingredient list hard to decipher. Why is the Parmesan listed separately? I gave it an honest go, and maybe it was just the babies in the background, but this was not pleasant to read.
This is my new go to for lasagna. The recipe is so easy to follow and is so good! I did add Italian seasoning, fennel, and extra oregano to the cheese mixture to give it a little more character. I loved the suggestion of spinach and added it between the first cheese and sauce layer. I also added fresh basil leaves under the top cheese layer. This recipe is so solid, you can make the changes you want to make it your own.
I.madenthis lasagna tonight. It is by far the best I have eaten. ❤️