S/O How do you make Lasagna?

I posted the recipe I use in the other post. It's our favorite. thestayathomechef.com/amazing-lasagna-recipe/

Italian sausage, ground beef in the tomato sauce with herbs and spices. Ricotta, fresh grated parmesan and mozzarella cheeses. The recipe calls for slices of regular mozzarella cheese, but I also add bits of fresh mozzarella.

The recipe I always use is from The Great Tomato Patch Cookbook, which was a fundraiser for a food bank in the Pittsburgh area in the 1980s.

Here's the recipe (and some personal commentary).

Ingredients
- 1 pound Ricotta or Ricotta and small curd cottage cheese (I have never in my life used cottage cheese)
- 1 1/2 cups shredded Mozzarella cheese, divided
- 2 eggs
- 1 10 oz. package frozen spinach/equivalent fresh, thawed (if using frozen), chopped, and drained (when I make it now, I just throw an entire bag of fresh through the food processor and get it really finely chopped)
- 1 tsp. salt
- 3/4 tsp. oregano
- 1/8 tsp. white pepper (I don't use this because we try to limit our spices to those we'll use in more than one thing)
- 8 oz. lasagna noodles, not cooked (as mentioned in the other thread, I just use oven-ready and find I like it more)
- 2 15 1/2 oz. jars spaghetti sauce (I like using the ones with garlic or mushroom added)
- 1 cup water
-- This recipe doesn't call for it, but we've also added frozen, pre-cooked meatballs to ours before, just cut in half and layered in

Instructions
- In large bowl, mix Ricotta, 1 cup Mozzarella, egg, spinach, and spices.
- Grease 13x9x2 baking dish (I can't remember the last time I actually greased the dish we use...).
- Layer full 1/2 cup sauce, then place 1/3 of noodles and half cheese mixture on top.
- Repeat.
- Top with remaining noodle, then remaining sauce.
- Sprinkle remaining Mozzarella on top.
- Pour water around edges (not needed if you use oven-ready noodles).
- Cover tightly with foil and bake in 350* oven for 1 hour, 15 mins.

Note: we will often double the recipe and number of layers since we're a cook once, eat all week sort of couple.

My very Italian gram would roll over in her grave if anyone of us used cottage cheese. Blech. The way you make it is exactly how she did. 

I make two different versions

Version one - layers of noodles, a ricotta/parmesan/broccoli/mozzarella mix with basil and oregano, bechamel sauce, and a sprinkle of parmesan on top

Version two - layers of noodles, red sauce with some combo of ground (mince) beef and/or Italian sausage, mozzarella/ricotta. Sometimes I make my own sauce, sometimes I use jarred, sometimes I doctor the jarred.

disclaimer - not Italian

Lasagne sheets 😊

Thanks for the kind reply... LOL I have used ricotta and everyone prefers the cottage cheese! Honestly, as far as flavor - there isn't much difference in them. Texture, but not flavor. Plus, the AE Cottage cheese (a regional Midwest dairy) is SO GOOD!
That looks awesome and much more durable than the Pioneer Woman one. I love the PW dishes = but damn - they are fragile!
- oh that sounds yummy! I will try that next time I have some fresh mozzarella!

I follow the recipe on the back of the San Giorgio box. We make lasagna about once every 3 years or so, so I feel no need to perfect it. It’s usually an easy holiday substitute for our vegetarian daughter.

However, as an all-things-cheese lover, I do not agree that ricotta and cottage cheese taste the same. We use both often, but never in place of one another. 😛

Midwest here also, and never cottage cheese in my lasagna, although I know it was pretty common. My mom was a home ec teacher so she must have known where to find ricotta back then. I found this classic lasagna about 10-15 years ago and it's our family favorite. Worth the extra time to get the really good flavor in the slow cooked sauce (I've done all day in crockpot or prefer it about 4 hrs in my enameled cast iron). I also use this as our preferred pasta sauce. We sometimes add spinach to the layers and once in a while make homemade pasta for it.

The lasagna recipe I had from my mom when I went off to college was a no-bake version with regular noodles, using jarred spaghetti sauce. Loved how easy it was, but it wasn't nearly as tasty as the one above.

Ricotta, mozzarella, ground beef, noodles and sauce. Have never heard of sausage being 7sed. Perhaps different areas of I
Italy have different customs.

For those who never heard of cottage cheese in lasagna...
Off a Creamette box years ago. Probably 3+ decades ago. I cut it off the box one of the first time I made it.bi found it before I moved.

Ironically I made it for yesterday easter with kids. Few weeks, bit more sauce, some at very bottom etc. It was really good. I like other lasagnas but sometimes simple and less goo just hits the spot.

lainey it confuses me too when our US friends refer to "noodles" and they mean pasta.

For the US Peas who are confused about our confusion : Noodles are for Asian dishes eg. Singapore noodles, ramen noodles, Udon noodles, Hokkien noodles etc. Pasta dishes use pasta eg. fettuccini, lasagne sheets, rigatoni, lingiune, penne etc.