Lantello Family Italian Recipes – Lasagna

Lantello Family Italian Recipes – Lasagna

 

***** This has been transcribed from my mom’s notes*****

If you cannot find certain brands, please try to find the best quality ones you can or can afford too. Quality products really make a difference.

 

Pot Cheese (which serves as the filling for the lasagna)

Ingredients:

2 lbs. Ricotta cheese (buy either Polly O WHOLE MILK or Gardenia WHOLE MILK or Sierra WHOLE MILK)

3 eggs

1 bunch of mint sprigs- remove them from the sprigs and coarsely chop them up

1 bunch of fresh ITALIAN parsley (coarsely chop them up)

1/2 cup of grated Romano cheese

Unknown amount of previously made sauce.

 

Directions:

Lightly beat the eggs. Add in everything else and mix well. If it seems too thick to spread easily, you can add about ½ cup of milk or half and half to thin the mixture a bit. This may or may not be needed, you be the judge.

 

Lasagna Noodles:

Ingredients

2 lb. BARILLA Lasagna pasta. Should say “No Bake” on the box.

Directions:

Follow directions on box to cook them

 

Ingredients for the Lasagna

The above pot cheese

Prepared lasagna noodles

½ lb. of Mozzarella cheese which has been coarsely grated

1/2 cup of grated Romano cheese

Unknown amount of sauce

 

Directions for the Lasagna

Spread a layer of sauce that is approximately ¼” thick on the bottom of your lasagna tray. This should just be enough sauce to cover.

Place a layer of the lasagna pasta on top of the sauce. You cand and should butt them up edge to edge, but be careful not to overlap the pasta as it may not cook properly if they are overlapped.

Spread a layer of the pot cheese on top of the pasta

Spread a layer of the sauce on top of the pot cheese

Sprinkle mozzarella over the sauce

Sprinkle Romano cheese over the mozzarella

You should have enough to do 4 layers which should go like this FROM THE BOTTOM TO THE TOP:

 

 

Sauce (Bottom Layer)

Lasagna pasta

Pot cheese

Mozzarella

Romano

 

 

Sauce

Lasagna pasta

Pot cheese

Mozzarella

Romano

 

Sauce

Lasagna pasta

Pot cheese

Mozzarella

Romano

 

 

Sauce

Lasagna pasta

Sauce

Mozzarella

Romano (Top layer)

 

So, in effect, you need to use 1/3rd of the pot cheese for each of the FIRST THREE layers. The top layer does not have the pot cheese on top. You will use ¼ of the mozzarella for each of the FOUR layers. Use the Romano for each of the 4 layers but use it SPARSELY. You’ll probably wind up using between 1 and 2 boxes of lasagna pasta.

Once the tray is complete, cover it with aluminum foil and bake it at 375 degrees for one hour to one hour and 10 minutes. You can remove the foil in the last 10 minutes of baking. Let it rest about 20 minutes before you cut it and dish it out.

Have a bowl of Romano cheese available for your or your guests to sprinkle on top and also extra sauce from them to ladle over the lasagna.