One Pot Lasagna

One pot lasagna? Not possible you say. You have to make the meat sauce, and the cheese filling, and boil the noodles, then assemble the whole thing, you exclaim! All true points. Making traditional lasagna is time consuming and can get expensive quickly. You could buy a frozen lasagna to skip all the fuss, but those are full of ingredients that you can't pronounce, and I find they're never as satisfying as the real thing. So what's a girl to do when she's CRAVING lasagna, but doesn't have the time or ingredients to make it, nor the money, or desire to wash her hair to go out to a restaurant and buy it? The answer is to make this one pot lasagna of course!

I'm just going to put a disclaimer on this recipe, it looks gross and it seems impossible all of the ingredients actually work together. Please trust me, this recipe definitely works and your family will eat it all up. It doesn't call for any ricotta cheese, but a cup of cottage cheese! It's truly the secret, amazing ingredient here. This dish tastes EXACTLY like traditional lasagna. I've even heard talk that cottage cheese is the secret ingredient in lasagna that little old Italian grandmas make.

Get started by putting a large pot of salted water on the stove to boil. Remember, your water should taste like the sea! Adding salt to your pasta water imparts flavor to your flavorless pasta. Cook your pasta according to package directions. You can really use whatever pasta you want here, but some choices are better than others. Small pastas tend to work better than long noodles. Think macaroni, cavatappi, penne, etc. I like to use raditore pasta. They have lots of nooks and crannies for the sauce to soak up into.  

While your pasta is cooking, heat up your marinara sauce and ground beef in the microwave. You want these to be close to the same temperature as your pasta. The heat will help you melt your cheese in the next step.

I always have pre-cooked ground beef in my freezer. I like to buy my ground beef in bulk and freeze it so I always have it on hand. Why is my beef kind of orange you ask? It's because my beef is packed full of veggies! Before I freeze it, I puree an equivalent weight of vegetables, think carrots, onions, celery, and saute my meat with the veggie puree. Example, if I have one pound of beef, I'll add one pound of carrots, onions, and celery. It effectively doubles the amount of meat I have which saves me money and adds valuable nutrients to my meat. It's not great for hamburgers, but for recipes that call for ground beef you can't even taste the difference! I'll do a blog post on how I stretch my ground beef next time I run out of meat.

Another way I save money is by buying my cheese when it's on sale, or at Aldi, and then freezing it until I need it. I buy the block cheeses and the shred it on demand. I never buy pre-shredded cheeses. For me a generic 8oz bag of shredded sharp cheddar cheese is regularly priced $2.99. At Aldi, the same sharp cheddar cheese block is $1.79. That's an extra dollar I get to keep in my wallet!

Once your pasta is fully cooked, drain it, then return it to the pot. At this point mix your pasta with the marinara sauce, beef, and cheeses. Mix everything together until your pasta is fully coated in sauce and the cheeses are completely melted. You will see visible cheese curds from the cottage cheese.

Once everything is all mixed together it doesn't look super appetizing, something about those visible curds, but I promise that it is delicious. The first time I made this my husband was skeptical and said, "You put what in here?" But 10 minutes later his plate was empty and he was going back for seconds.

Give this recipe a try, and comment back to let me know what you think!

One Pot Lasagna

Serves: 4

Ingredients:

8oz Radiatore Pasta

12oz Garlic Marinara Sauce

½ lb pre-cooked ground beef

1 cup shredded Mozzarella Cheese

½ cup grated Parmesan Cheese

1 cup cottage cheese

Directions:

• Bring a pot of salted water to a rolling boil. Cook your pasta according to package directions.
• Heat your marinara sauce and ground beef in the microwave. You want them to be the same temperature as your pasta.
• Drain your cooked pasta and return it to the pot it was cooked in. Add the marinara sauce, beef, and cheeses to the pasta. Stir everything until pasta is well coated in sauce and cheeses are fully melted. You will still see some cottage cheese curds.
• Serve immediately.