This beautiful, satisfying and incredibly tasty dish can be considered the hallmark of original Italian cuisine. Lasagna is a pasta product baked in the shape of a circle, rectangle or square. To prepare it according to the classic recipe, layers of various fillings are used, mainly based on stew and minced meat, traditional Italian bechamel sauce, and the dish is sprinkled with grated hard or soft cheese on top. How to cook real Italian lasagna with cheese? What ingredients are needed for this? What cheese is best for lasagna? How complex is the cooking technology? Let's talk about this in our article.
Lasagna with cheese: cooking basics
Modern lasagna is made from several layers of dough. Each of them is filled with a filling, for which mushrooms, minced meat or vegetables are used. Each of the layers is poured with bechamel sauce, and the treat is sprinkled with grated cheese on top.
Most often, Italians use cheeses such as Parmesan, mozzarella and ricotta to prepare the dish. The classic combination of mozzarella and Parmesan makes lasagna juicy and tender, while the use of these two types of cheese gives the dish a special aroma and spiciness. However, experts do not recommend limiting yourself to strict limits. Parmesan is only required to create the classic lasagna bolognese. But sometimes it is replaced with another hard cheese, which is necessary to form a crispy golden crust. Any type of this product is suitable for lasagna; soft (creamy) cheeses go especially well with aged hard cheeses, which have a sharp taste and sharp aroma. For example, mozzarella can also be replaced with other types of cheese (soft), for example, feta cheese or suluguni.
Lasagna dough with cheese is made from durum wheat flour used to create pasta. The dough layers are sold as dry sheets. The dish is baked in the oven at t = 220 °C for half an hour.
The first mistake. Wrong choice of pasta sheets
The need for invention is cunning, and therefore today on the Internet you can find recipes for making lasagna from... lavash. Can you imagine? In fact, this dish has nothing to do with the famous Italian product. To prepare lasagna, you should use only special layers created in Italy. Fortunately, purchasing these is not a problem today. And they are quite inexpensive.
For our part, we would like to recommend Rustichella egg sheets. Prepared from durum wheat with the addition of egg yolks, they are ideal for preparing the dish described.
Classic recipe: lasagna with cheese and minced meat
The calorie content of this dish is 965 kcal. The nutritional value of the product is:
- proteins – 50 g;
- fats – 72.6 g;
- carbohydrates – 23.9 g.
To prepare lasagna with minced meat and cheese in the oven you will need:
- 600 g minced meat;
- 600 g Bolognese sauce;
- 60 g butter (butter);
- 2.5 tbsp. l. flour (wheat);
- 2 tbsp. l olive oil;
- 750 ml milk;
- 10 sheets of lasagna (ready-dry);
- 500 g cheese (hard).
What kind of vessel to cook the dish in?
To prepare lasagna, you will need thick-walled dishes in which the dough will not burn - after all, the dish will simmer for 30 minutes at a temperature of 190 ° C. In other words, the cookware must be heat-resistant and reliable. The best shapes for this purpose are made of ceramics and fireproof glass, cast iron cookware or a container with a non-stick coating.
It is optimal to choose a rectangular shape measuring 26 × 18 cm, sometimes they are made in square and even round ones. But this is not very convenient, since the cut pieces of lasagna themselves must be rectangular in shape. Such a classic!
Cooking features
According to this recipe, lasagna with cheese and minced meat is prepared as follows:
- In accordance with the recipe, put a little butter and two tablespoons of vegetable oil in a saucepan and melt it. Gradually add flour and stir, making sure that there are no lumps left.
- After all the flour has been mixed in, add the milk. Reduce heat and simmer until the mixture acquires the consistency of low-fat sour cream.
- Next, heat the olive oil in a frying pan. Add minced meat (preferably a mixture of pork and veal). The minced meat is fried until half cooked. Pour Bolognese sauce into it, salt and pepper to taste.
- The oven is heated to 180 degrees. Grease the mold with a small amount of butter (butter). Pour a little sauce onto the bottom, just enough to cover the bottom. Lay out the layers (do not cook!). Place minced meat on the layers, and grated cheese on it. Béchamel sauce is placed on the cheese, and dry sheets of dough are placed on top of it. The procedure is repeated. The last layer is coated with bechamel sauce and sprinkled with cheese on top quite generously. Before baking, lasagna should sit for 7-10 minutes.
According to this recipe, lasagna with cheese is baked in the oven for half an hour. Tip: be sure to coat the edges of the sheets well, otherwise the dish will turn out a little dry.
