Overnight Lasagne Recipe
This is slow cooking at its best. But don't worry: most of the work is letting your lasagne rest overnight to bring out all of its delicious flavors. Let's make a tasty homemade lasagne together! Before we start, here are some fun facts to impress your guests at the dinner table:Did you know its pronounced lasagne instead of lasagna? In Italian the word lasagna means one sheet of pasta. But for this dish you'll use several sheets of pasta. Meaning, you use the plural of this word: lasagne.Some say lasagne is pronounced with a silent g. That's exactly not entirely true. In Italian, the letter combination "gn" is pronounced "nj". So you don't pronounce it as "lasane" or "lasagne", but as "lasanje".
Serves
4 - 5 persons
Ingredients
Bolognese sauce (Ragù alla Bolognese)
150 g ( 5 oz) carrots
150 g (5 oz) celery stalks
150 g (5 oz) onions
2 cloves of garlic
1 tbsp olive oil
150 g (5 oz) Pancetta
400 g (14 oz) ground meat (beef/porc)
1/2 tsp nutmeg (preferably freshly grated)
3 tbs tomato paste
175 ml (3/4 cup) red or white wine - See notes
250 ml (1 cup) chicken or beef stock
250 ml (1 cup) whole milk
2 bay leaves
Salt and pepper (to taste)
Béchamel sauce
500 ml (2 cups) cold whole milk
50 g (1.8 oz) unsalted butter
50 g (1.8 oz) flour
1/4 tsp nutmeg (preferably freshly grated)
Salt and pepper (to taste)
Layering
Lasagne pasta sheets (preferably fresh) - See notes
Freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano or another cheese (amount to preference)
Tools
Grater - optional
Instructions
Day 1: Bolognese sauce (Ragù alla Bolognese)
Start by making a soffritto: cut the carrots, celery, onion and garlic into small, even cubes (brunoise). Or you can roughly chop them, and blend them in a blender to make a paste. Put your vegetable brunoise or paste into a bowl and set aside.
Chop the Pancetta into small cubes.
Put your cooking pot over medium high heat and add 1 tbs of olive oil. Once the oil is heated, add your pancetta cubes. Fry the pancetta while stirring occasionally until the meat has lightly colored brown. Scoop the pancetta out of the cooking pot into a separate bowl.
Add your ground meat to the cooking pot and let the edges brown for a couple of minutes over medium high heat while stirring.
Scoop the ground meat into the bowl with the pancetta and set aside. Leave as much oil as you can into the cooking pot. We’ll use this oil for our vegetables.
Add your soffritto to the cooking pot. Grate the nutmeg onto the vegetables and let the heat release its flavor. Let the vegetables sweat over medium heat for a couple of minutes. They shouldn’t brown or caramelize, just soften to bring out their flavors.
Add the tomato paste to the vegetables and stir everything together until combined. Let the tomato paste cook with the vegetables for a couple of minutes so the tomato paste loses its soury taste.
Pour your wine on top of the tomato paste and vegetable mixture. Let it reduce over medium heat until all of the wine has evaporated.
Next, add your pancetta and ground meat to the cooking pot. Follow by pouring the stock and whole milk on top.
Throw in your bay leaves. Bring everything to a simmer and reduce to a low heat. Let the sauce simmer for at least 1 hour (preferably 2 to 3 hours in our opinion). While it simmers, the liquid will evaporate and you will get a nice thick consistency. You don’t want a watery tomato sauce in your lasagne!
When you’ve reached the desired consistency, add pepper and salt to taste. Take the cooking pot off the heat and let the sauce cool down to room temperature. Don’t forget to take out your bay leaves.
Time for a flavor nap! Put the lid on and keep it in the fridge overnight or for a couple of hours at least.
Day 2: Béchamel sauce
Put your sauce pan onto a medium heat and add your butter.
When the butter has melted completely add the flour and start whisking both ingredients. Let them thicken into a roux.
Let the roux cook and bubble for a couple of minutes while stirring occasionally. If you want a white béchamel sauce, it’s important that the roux doesn’t turn brown.
When your roux starts to smell like pastry you know it’s time to get your cold milk out of the fridge. If you use cold milk you lower the chance of your béchamel getting lumpy.
Keep whisking when you carefully add the cold milk to the roux. Slowly bring the milk to a boil. Continue to whisk while the roux melts together with the milk into a white sauce. Once bubbles start to form, whisk for one more minute while the sauce thickens. Be careful not to burn the mixture at the bottom!
Take the sauce pan off the heat. Grate nutmeg on top. Add pepper and salt to taste.
Day 2: Layering
First heat your bolognese sauce in the cooking pot over low heat. When hot, the sauce is easier to work with.
The first layer in your oven dish will be bolognese sauce. Scoop some sauce into the oven dish until you have a thin layer that covers the bottom of the dish. This will make sure the pasta sheets won’t stick to the oven dish.
Next, place one layer of lasagne sheets on top of the sauce until covered. Fresh pasta sheets are much easier to work with than dried pasta sheets.
Time for another layer of bolognese sauce. This time cover the whole dish with a nice layer, depending on how many layers you want your lasagne to have.
Up next is the béchamel sauce. Spread a thin layer on top of the red tomato sauce. There is no right or wrong amount here, use the ratio white to red sauce that you prefer.
Follow with another layer of pasta sheets. Continue in the same order (bolognese sauce, béchamel sauce and pasta sheets) until you reach the edge of your oven dish.
End with a layer of béchamel sauce. Grate your cheese on top until you’re happy with the amount. If you want you can grate some more nutmeg on top.
Day 2: Bake in the oven
Place the oven dish in a preheated oven for 45 to 60 minutes at 175 °Celsius or 350 °Fahrenheit.
You know the lasagne is ready when you can easily poke a small kitchen knife through all the layers.
How To Serve
Once it’s ready and out of the oven, let the lasagne rest in the oven dish on your countertop for 5 to 7 minutes. This will make it easier to cut and serve the lasagne out of the oven dish and onto a plate.
Notes
You can use white or red wine. White wine in a lasagne tastes a little more refined. Red wine will give the dish some more character in our opinion.
The amount and size of pasta sheets you’ll need, depends on the size of your oven dish. The bigger your oven dish, the more pasta sheets you need to cover the area. Something else to consider is how many layers you prefer. The more layers of pasta you want, the more sheets you will need.
Your Turn!
