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Five Simple Lasagna Mistakes That Everyone Makes

Lasagne, one of the nation’s favorite dishes. It’s filling, it creates lots of portions, it mixes some of our favorite ingredients and it can be extremely easy to make. It doesn’t take long to prepare or cook, and you can feed a whole family with just a couple of ingredients. You can eat it for lunch, for dinner [1] or even cut out little pieces to have as a snack. It’s versatile, tasty and fits the bill for a budget family dinner.

However, it’s also a dish that we often get wrong. There are lots of small ways to greatly improve your lasagna, so here are five simple mistakes that you should try to avoid.

1. Use equal parts béchamel and marinara

A lot of people seem to skip the béchamel sauce because it’s a little harder to make or source. However, if you want a great lasagna, you absolutely need to with a creamy béchamel to complement your tomato-based marinara. The creaminess helps to keep the entire lasagna moist and holds the layers together, and the saltiness helps to counteract the slight acidity that comes from the tomatoes.

 

  1. When in doubt, follow a recipe

There are lots of great recipes that will help you get started with making a lasagna. You’ll understand the portions of each ingredient and you’ll also get recommendations on which cheese to use. You can also look for unique alternatives, such as a lasagna rolls recipe [2] to mix things up a bit and try a different type of lasagna. There are lots of different options and combinations of ingredients to try.

lasagne

  1. Don’t put down a layer of noodles first

When making lasagna, putting down a layer of noodles first means that it might stick to the bottom of the pan. This makes it incredibly hard to remove the lasagna from the pan and it also dries up the bottom. Instead, put down a layer of sauce and meat to help keep things moist and make it easy to remove a piece.

 

  1. Don’t overcook the noodles

Traditional lasagna calls for boiling your noodles first. However, you probably know that boiling them the whole way and then baking them can make them soft, clumpy and ruin the texture. The key here is to slightly undercook your noodles in boiling water [3] before you layer them. Cook them for around 2-3 minutes less than the packet and try to avoid no-boil noodles when making your lasagna for a more authentic texture.

 

  1. Add lots of layers

The more layers you have, the more sturdy the lasagna will be. This makes it easy to cut into and also adds a more unique texture to the lasagna. You should ideally have a relatively thin layer of sauce between each sheet of noodle. You may need to adjust this for your own recipe which is why we suggest looking at a popular recipe to get a good idea of how many layers you should use and how big the pan should be.

lasagne

So get cooking and let’s have some lasagne!!

Here are some things that are perfect to use for this recipe!

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