Italian-American Lasagna with Meat Sauce and Ricotta

classic italian american lasagna today i'm going to show you a few tricks on how to make it perfect one of those tricks is to have a really thick meat sauce like the one we made in the first episode of this series also the regatta you want to strain overnight if you can at least for two hours slice your palio or whatever brand you like mozzarella cheese into about eight inch slices regular mozzarella works better than fresh mozzarella for this recipe as far as parmigiano versus pecorino romano use whichever you like i'm gonna use pecorino romano for this place strained regatta into a large glass bowl or metal bowl whatever you like and remove the basil leaves from the large stem and discard that stem you don't need that it's not critical how finely you mince the herbs but but i recommend fairly small pieces and put it all in the regatta take about one teaspoon of salt kosher salt and about a quarter teaspoon of black pepper to season the regatta up mix that all around you don't have to be super aggressive when you mix it because you're still going to mix it some more so we're going to take two eggs crack them in a bowl so you don't contaminate if you had a bad egg so beat them pretty well and then pour it into the regatta mixture and now you can mix it a little bit more smooth this is going to be one of the only times i tell you to oil your water because it's going to prevent them from sticking and which is very important you're going to have to work in batches you're going to mix the whole time and then you're going to fish them out with a spider or you can pour them into a colander when you get them in the ice water bath they'll be good to go and then you're going to get them out this is parchment paper on baking sheets i have three of them over here and that's going to allow them to not stick they have to be separated before you start assembling your lasagna the other way is if you don't have parchment paper uh dish coats clean dishcorts lay them out you can lay them all out on your counter or wherever but you got to keep the lasagna noodles separated put two tablespoons of kosher salt into boiling water a drop of olive oil just a drop it's all you need and the water is boiling very very well and then put in one lasagna noodle at a time this will prevent it from sticking together don't overload your pot do about six to eight depending on how large pot is maybe you could fit in ten and then stir right away just stir the whole time you know don't don't stop you don't want these to stick and they won't stick if you do this you take a pasta spider or a strainer and put it right in your ice water bath and that's going to stop the cooking and then just grab them and then they'll be flat and then you lay them all out on your parchment paper and you'll be totally set all right moving on to assembling the lasagna take a touch of olive oil just a touch like a teaspoon and just wipe the bottom and the sides with the paper towel then take that thick hearty meat sauce and put a big layer on the bottom about a quarter inch maybe even a half an inch this is going to prevent anything from sticking at the bottom which is exactly what you want these size pieces of lasagna will fit six to a layer in a standard 13 by nine baking tray so it's easy to think about it this way when you buy a box of lasagna and you kind of overlap them and they're going to overlap on the sides and they're going to overlap in the center you get your first layer in perfect just like that and here's our regatta mixture so you think about it you're gonna use you're gonna have three layers so you're gonna basically divide everything everything into thirds so take about a third of the regatta now and spread it all around and if you have more regatta left over don't worry because i'm going to show you something really good to do with it and to do with the leftover lasagna noodles so i'm using a spatula and just spreading it all around getting it all to the sides and that's pretty decent layer of regard to there here's our mozzarella cheese and we're gonna take about a third of that two and layer it in there and don't worry if you use a little too much on one layer or not enough nobody's gonna know nobody's gonna care everybody's gonna love this trust me they're gonna love that you made this for them so another really thick layer of meat sauce this is why we made so much of that meat sauce in episode one of this series this is episode 3 of the series and i would say sprinkle about 2 3 4 tablespoons of pecorino romano here again it's not going to matter if you don't do the exact amount uh i try to instill that in all my videos here that measurements are made to be broken you don't have to follow everything exactly and you're the more you learn to cook the better you're going to get at knowing not just how much you like but how much the people you cook for like so again we're going to put another layer of the lasagna noodles right on top six of them again you know overlapping and then another hefty layer of that regatta and you know if you have a real if you have a much deeper tray baking dish you could build up four or five layers of this nothing is stopping you from only doing three layers it's just basically you're limited by the size of of the baking dish you're using but a 13x9 is a really good standard baking dish for a whole family this is going to get you a meal for four five six people it'll definitely be enough so we're just working it up again all that sauce more pecorino romano and then the noodles and i'm going like i said at the end i'm gonna show you what to do with those rest of those lasagna noodles you guys know what it is already right don't give it away though you know i told you right tomorrow's stuffed shells this one is lasagna i know what to say i know it's lasagna anyway they're gonna get out of here so i can continue no idea i had a little interruption from the kids they're always coming around seeing what i'm making and uh they were excited about this one lasagna is uh you know it's not something you do all the time it's uh i guess kind of a special occasion thing i'm building up that last layer with more of the sauce pecorino and mozzarella cheese and that's looking great so put a little bit of oil on foil because we're going to bake this in the oven you put it on top this way or an even better trick is to put parchment paper underneath your foil and then it'll prevent sticking as well all right so here here we go we got the last we got more of these noodles what do we do with them right let's make another round trail lasagna and let's make some uh roll-ups i got three pieces of three noodles i'm gonna coat them with some of that regatta some of the basil and parsley meat sauce and just roll those up these are great they have all the flavor and taste of lasagna and they're a lot easier so i just want to show you what you could do kind of like with those leftover bits you have because you know you might have a little bit more sauce regardless you probably have more noodles and there it is looking good and sauce on top some pecorino and mozzarella it has all the things all the ingredients of of standard lasagna it's a little oil on that foil too and just put it right on top let me do 375 fahrenheit for 45 minutes and keep it covered up until the end where you can pull it off for the last 10 or 15 minutes to get that really crispy edge which is the best part and i know you want to eat it right away but don't let it rest for 30 minutes it'll be a lot better

Channel: Sip and Feast

Views: 197,381

Keywords: how to make italian american lasagna, classic lasagna recipe with meat sauce, italian american lasagna recipe, american style lasagna, lasagna with ricotta and mozzarella, classic italian american lasagna, classic lasagna with meat sauce, meat sauce and ricotta lasagna, sip and feast, jim delmage

Id: frNYXqnKG3o

Length: 8min 59sec (539 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 25 2020