Yesterday, the meat sauce.
Today, Mom’s lasagna…
1 box lasagna noodles (this works fine with the oven ready variety, too)
1 lb. cottage¹ cheese (or ricotta)
8 oz. grated mozzarella
8 oz. grated mild cheddar
1 or 2 eggs
spaghetti sauce
2 teaspoons Italian seasoning
Fresh grated Parmesan
Cook the lasagna noodles according to package directions. Rinse, drain and let cool. (Or skip this step if you’re using the oven-ready variety.)
In a large mixing bowl, add the Italian seasoning & the egg(s) to the cottage (or ricotta) cheese. Mix well. Blend in the mozzarella and the cheddar.
In an 8×13 casserole dish, coat the bottom with 1/4 cup of sauce. Place a layer of noodles and 1/2 of the cheese mixture over the sauce. Add another 1/4 cup of sauce. (Follow pkg. directions for amount of sauce with the oven-ready noodles – you’ll need a lot more sauce.) Repeat for layer 2: noodles, cheese, sauce. Add a final layer of noodles. Top that with a good coating of sauce. Sprinkle with parmesan cheese. Bake at 350 for 40-50 minutes.² Let sit before dishing out.
Serve with more sauce, garlic bread, and meatballs and sausage! Enjoy.
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¹If you wonder about using cottage cheese, my parents passed down the story of moving from New York to Georgia, and then South Carolina, in the late 1940s. Grocery stores in the south didn’t have ricotta cheese! Mom substituted cottage cheese. For years, I liked her version of lasagna better.
² You can also make this days or weeks ahead and freeze. When I was a kid, we had lasagna-making days. A huge pot of sauce bubbled on the stove top all day long, filling the house with wonderful smells. We’d gather at the kitchen table and create a dozen or more pans of lasagna – some to give as Christmas gifts, other to freeze and take out for other special meals after the holidays. Mmm…
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