Deconstructed Lasagna

One of my friends told me how she makes an easy, lasagna-type dish, but with a lot less work. We tired it out, and I really enjoyed it. My favorite part about it, besides that it's a bit less work than traditional lasagna, was the delicious cheese-layer that gets sandwiched between the noodles-sauce-meat layer. Enjoy!

Deconstructed Lasagna

Ingredients:

• 1 lb ground meat (our favorite blend is 1/2 hamburger 1/2 Italian sausage)
• 48 ounces spaghetti sauce (2 cans Hunt's)
• 1 pkg (1 lb) bite-sized noodles
• 1 regular container ricotta (about 15 ounces)
• 2 eggs
• 2 cups shredded mozzarella, divided
• 1/2 cup parmesan, divided
• 1 Tbl Italian seasoning

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. In a large pan, brown your meat and drain any excess fat. Add your spaghetti sauce and let heat-through to a gentle simmer.
3. In a large pot, bring water to a boil and cook your pasta about half way done (in the above picture, we did a box of the mini bowtie pasta that usually cooks for about 7 minutes, so we did 4 minutes). Drain and add to your meat/sauce mixture (depending on the size of your pots/pan, you may need to transfer to a larger bowl).
4. In a large bowl, mix together your container of ricotta, 2 eggs, about a cup of mozzarella, a 1/4 cup parmesan and your Italian seasoning.
5. In a greased deep-dish casserole, layer 1/2 your meat mixture, then all of the ricotta mixture, followed by the rest of your meat mixture.
6. Top with remaining cheese and cover with lid or foil.
7. Bake for 30-45 minutes or until the internal temperature reaches about 160 degrees.
8. Remove foil/lid and broil for a couple of minutes until the top cheese gets a golden crust.

Tips:

All of the ingredients in this recipe are adjustable and approximate. I thought two cans of Hunts sauce was the perfect amount, but you might like more or less or a different kind. I just eye-balled the Italian seasoning so 1 Tbl is my best guess, and I did the same with all the shredded cheeses, just adding about what I thought looked good.

I used my deep-dish blue casserole dish and I think this worked out perfectly because it allowed me to make a nice thick layer with the ricotta. If I had used a 9x13 dish, I think the ricotta would have been too spread out to make much of a layer... and cutting into the lucious ricotta was one of my favorite parts of this dish. 

The amount of time the casserole will be in the oven will also depend on the type of dish you use. If you layers aren't very thick, it will heat everything through much faster. To get it just right, I used a digital thermometer. However, you can also just bake it until the sides are bubbly and the cheese seems melted.

For reference, here is a picture of a Rachel Ray stoneware 2.75 quart casserole dish (mine is blue, but this one is purple). These are discontinued, but you can use any similar dish you have. Just know that your layers might be different than mine and your cooking times will vary.