Lasagne al Forno is a traditional dish from Bologna, Italy, that is made with layers of pasta, meat sauce, béchamel sauce, and cheese. It is considered one of the most iconic dishes of Italian cuisine and is enjoyed by people all over the world. This article will provide you with the best recipe to cook Lasagne al Forno traditional from Bologna.
Check out the recipes below so you can choose the best recipe for yourself!
LASAGNE AL FORNO WITH BOLOGNESE RAGU
This classic recipe for baked lasagna is the ultimate comfort food.
Provided by Jacqueline De Bono
Categories Main Course
Time 3h30m
Number Of Ingredients 19
Steps:
- Fry the vegetables in a little olive oil until they soften. (Some Italian chefs insist that the meat and vegetables be fried separately as they require different levels of heat)
- In a separate pan fry the minced meat in heated olive oil over a medium heat until it begins to brown and then add the vegetables. (you can also cook the meat with the veg)
- Add the wine and continue stirring. When the alcohol has evaporated, add the tomatoes and/or passata and the stock.
- Lower the heat and leave to simmer partially covered for at least 1.5 hours, stirring occasionally.
- Add salt and pepper to taste.
- Add the milk, stir and continue to let the sauce simmer for another 30 minutes.
- If you think the sauce is too liquidy you can remove the cover completely till it reduces. But if you are using fresh or uncooked pasta the sauce needs to be a little liquidy.
- Melt the butter in a saucepan over low heat, incorporate the sifted flour and mix everything with a wooden spoon or whisk until you have a paste (roux)
- Cook the roux until it is golden, and at this point add the milk a little at a time, plus a pinch of salt and a ½ teaspoon of grated nutmeg. Continue to stir until the sauce reaches the consistency you want.
- If you are using dried pasta sheets partly cook them in boiling salted water. You may want to add a little olive oil to the water so they don't stick together or cook them one at a time!
- Then butter a rectangular baking dish and spread a little sauce on the bottom. Make a layer of lasagne sheets, cover them with a layer of sauce, some béchamel and a sprinkling of grated cheese.
- Then put another layer of pasta, then bolognese sauce, béchamel and cheese and so on until the ingredients are used up, leaving some béchamel for the final layer.
- Cover the last layer with béchamel sauce, grated parmesan and some butter flakes.
- Bake your lasagne al forno in a preheated oven at 170-180 °c (338-356°F)for about thirty minutes. When the surface is golden and the pasta is cooked (check using a fork) remove from the oven and allow to sit for 5-10 minutes before serving. If using uncooked pasta it's a good idea to cover the dish with aluminium foil for the first 15 minutes as otherwise the top may get golden before the pasta is cooked.
- Allow the lasagne al forno to sit for 5-10 minutes before serving.
LASAGNA AL FORNO
Provided by Tyler Florence
Categories main-dish
Time 2h40m
Yield 12 servings
Number Of Ingredients 18
Steps:
- Cook the lasagna noodles in plenty of boiling salted water until pliable and barely tender, about 10 minutes. Stir with a wooden spoon to prevent sticking. Drain the noodles thoroughly, coat with olive oil keep them moist and easy to work with.
- Coat a large skillet with olive oil. Saute over medium heat, onion, garlic and herbs. Cook 5 minutes. Brown beef and sausage until no longer pink, about 15 minutes. Drain fat into a small container and discard. Stir in the tomato paste completely. Set aside to cool.
- In a mixing bowl, combine ricotta, parsley and oregano. Stir in beaten eggs. Add Parmesan, season with salt and pepper.
- To assemble the lasagna: Coat the bottom of a 13 by 9-inch pan with a ladle full of tomato sauce. Arrange 4 noodles lengthwise in a slightly overlapping layer on the sauce. Then, line each end of the pan with a lasagna noodle. This forms a collar that holds in the corners. Spread 1/2 of the meat mixture over the pasta. Dollop 1/2 of the ricotta mixture over the meat, spread to the edges with a spatula. Sprinkle 1/2 of the mozzarella on top of the ricotta. Top with a ladle full of tomato sauce, spread evenly. Repeat with the next layer of noodles, meat, cheeses and sauce. Top last layer with noodles, sauce and shredded mozzarella and Parmesan. Tap the pan to force out air bubbles. Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 1 hour. Remove from oven. Let lasagna rest for 30 minutes so the noodles will settle and cut easily. Cut into 2-inch squares and serve.
LASAGNE AL FORNO - TRADITIONAL FROM BOLOGNA
Steps:
- Ragu: Heat tablespoon of oil in your largest pan over a medium heat. Sweat onion. Grind pancetta in a food processor until finely chopped. Add to the pan along with the garlic and continue cooking 5 minutes. Transfer mixture to casserole. Add tablespoon of oil to the pan, turn up to high heat. Add minced beef browning. Transfer to casserole. Repeat with pork - transfer to casserole. And again for chicken liver. Place the casserole over direct heat, stir. Add tomatoes, tomato puree, red wine, a really good seasoning of salt and pepper and about a quarter of a nutmeg, grated. Stir, allow to come up to simmering point. While that happens, strip the leaves from the basil, tear them and add. As soon as mixture is simmering, cook slowly in oven for 4 hours without lid (stirring intermittently) When that happens, remove the casserole from the oven, taste to check the seasoning, then strip the remaining leaves off the basil, tear them into small pieces and stir them it. Besciamella sauce: Melt the butter in a large saucepan over medium heat. Once melted, slowly stir in the flour until smooth. Continue stirring as the flour cooks to a light, golden color, about 3 minutes. Increase the heat to medium-high and slowly whisk the hot milk into the roux. Bring to a simmer, then reduce the heat to medium low. Continue simmering until the flour has softened and become completely smooth, about
LASAGNE AL FORNO
Lasagne, as everyone knows, is a dish of wide flat noodles, sometimes green from spinach (lasagne Verdi), sometimes with ruffled edges (lasagne ricce). The classic, austere version from Bologna alternates layers of lasagne with meat sauce (ragu) and bechamel. I am giving a more exuberant example below. There are many others, including the lasagne di vigilia, Christmas Eve lasagne, involving very wide noodles that remind the faithful of the baby Jesus's swaddling clothes. Lasagne (Lasagne is the singular but it is almost never use. Ditto for other pasta types: who would ever lapse into speaking of a single spaghetto, except in humor) is first and foremost a noodle, not a specific dish, It may be the primordial Italian pasta noodle, or at least the oldest known word in the modern pasta vocabulary. In one way or another, lasagne seems to derive from the classical Latin laganum. But what was laganum? Something made of flour and oil, a cake. The word itself derived from a Greek word for chamber pot, which was humorously applied to cooking pots. And like many other, better-known cases of synecdochical food names, the container came to stand for the thing it contained. And eventually, by a process no one knows with any certainly, laganum emerged as a word for a flat noodle in very early modern, southern Italy. If you are persuaded by all the evidence collected by Clifford A. Wright, you will be ready to believe that in Sicily, an Arab noodle cuisine collided with the Italian kitchen vocabulary and co-opted laganum and its variant lasanon to describe the new "cakes" coming in from North Africa. Would you be happier about this theory if you had evidence of a survival of an "oriental" Arab pasta in Sicily? Mary Taylor Simeti provides one in Pomp and Sustenance, Twenty-Five Centuries of Sicilian Food. Sciabbo, a Christmas noodle dish eaten in Enna in central Sicily, combines ruffled lasagna (sciabbo-jabot, French for a ruffled shirtfront) with cinnamon and sugar, typical Near Eastern spices then and now.
Provided by Food Network
Categories main-dish
Time 1h30m
Yield 6 servings
Number Of Ingredients 14
Steps:
- In a mixing bowl, stir together the beef, milk, parsley, salt, and pepper. Form into balls the size of olives. Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a skillet and brown the meatballs in small batches. Remove from the pan as they brown and drain on paper towels. Set aside.
- In the same skillet, add the onion and garlic and saute until the onion is lightly browned. Then stir in the tomato puree and tomato paste. Simmer for 15 minutes.
- Bring 6 quarts of water to boil in a large pot.
- Add the meatballs to the tomato mixture and continue cooking for another 30 minutes. Meanwhile, liberally salt the boiling water and add the lasagna. Cook until al dente, about 10 minutes. Drain in colander.
- Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
- In a shallow ovenproof pan, roughly 13 by 9 by 2 inches, spread a thin layer of the sauce (no meatballs). Then spread a layer of overlapping lasagna 1 strip thick (don't let the strips run up the side of the dish). Cover that with mozzarella slices and then 5 tablespoons ricotta. Sprinkle with the Parmesan and then spread on 1/4 of the sauce and meatballs. Begin again with a layer of lasagna and continue as above until all the ingredients are used up, ending with the Parmesan.
- Bake for 30 to 35 minutes. If the cheese on top hasn't melted, run under the broiler briefly. Then let the dish rest at room temperature for a few minutes before serving.
LASAGNE VERDI AL FORNO
A recipe from my home in Emilia-Romagna, Italy; this lasagna made with spinach pasta cannot be beat. It's excellent if you want to impress some guests, or even yourself. It may be a bit time consuming, but it's well worth the TLC you put into it.
Provided by Arianna
Categories World Cuisine Recipes European Italian
Time 1h30m
Yield 8
Number Of Ingredients 26
Steps:
- For the pasta dough: Steam the spinach in a steamer or over boiling water until bright green, 2 minutes. Squeeze to remove excess moisture and process in a food processor to make a paste. Combine spinach with eggs, semolina, and salt and process until smooth. Stir in enough of the flour to make a smooth dough. Knead briefly, cover and set aside.
- For the ragu: In a large skillet, melt butter over medium-high heat. Saute bacon, carrot, celery and onion until onion is translucent. Stir in ground pork, ground beef and minced ham, and cook until browned. Stir in tomato paste, oregano and beef stock. (Reserve the chicken livers for later.) Season with salt and pepper, reduce heat to low, cover and simmer 20 minutes.
- For the bechamel: While the ragu is simmering, combine 2 tablespoons butter and 2 tablespoons flour in a medium saucepan over medium-low heat. Whisk to make a roux. Remove from heat, let rest one minute, then whisk in warm milk. Return to heat, simmer 10 minutes, stirring constantly, until thickened. Season with salt and nutmeg. Remove from heat.
- To cook pasta: Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. On a floured surface, divide pasta dough into three portions. Roll each portion out to a thin sheet. Have ready an ice water bath. Cook each sheet 3 minutes in the boiling water; remove from the boiling water and dip in the ice water; drain and dry on a clean, dry cloth.
- To finish the ragu: Stir the chicken livers into the simmering sauce. Cook 1 minute, remove from heat and set aside.
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Grease a 9x13 baking dish.
- To assemble lasagna: Place one pasta sheet in bottom of prepared baking dish. Spread one-third of the ragu, one-quarter of the bechamel, one-third of the ricotta, and one-quarter of the parmesan over the pasta. Repeat layers twice. Top with remaining bechamel and parmesan and dot with butter.
- Bake in preheated oven 30 minutes, until top is golden brown.
Nutrition Facts : Calories 551.8 calories, Carbohydrate 31.4 g, Cholesterol 186.6 mg, Fat 33 g, Fiber 2 g, Protein 31.8 g, SaturatedFat 17.4 g, Sodium 1044.4 mg, Sugar 5.5 g
LASAGNE AL FORNO
This is Delia Smith's version of Lasagne. I'm used to the American version of lasagna that is smothered in red sauce, but in England it is more traditional to have a bechamel sauce. It takes a while, but it's worth it! Cooking time is mostly inactive.
Provided by Scarlett516
Categories European
Time 24m
Yield 12 serving(s)
Number Of Ingredients 23
Steps:
- In a large sauté pan, heat 1 tablespoon oil over medium heat. Add onion and fry for about 10 minutes.
- While the onion is cooking, chop the pancetta. The best way to do this is to roll it up, cut lengthwise then across.
- Once onion is softened, add the pancetta and cook for another 5 minutes.
- Place the pancetta and onion in a 6 quart dutch oven, add another tablespoon of oil to the sauté pan and return to heat.
- Add the ground beef and cook until browned. Transfer to the dutch oven, add another tablespoon of oil to pan and return to heat.
- Add the ground pork and brown.
- Once pork has browned, add it to the dutch oven.
- Preheat oven to 275°F (140°C, Gas Mark 1).
- Place dutch oven on burner and stir ingredients together. Add the tomatoes, tomato purée, red wine, salt, pepper, and about ¼ nutmeg, grated. Stir all ingredients together and bring to a simmer.
- While bringing mixture to a simmer, tear half of the basil leaves from the stem, tear or chop the leaves and add them to the pot. As soon as the mixture is simmering, place in preheated oven. You do not need to cover the mixture.
- Here the recipe says to let simmer for 3 hours before giving a stir, I stirred every 45 minutes.
- When liquid has reduced to a concentrated sauce, season to taste with salt and pepper and add the remainder of the basil.
- About 20-30 minutes before the ragú bolognese is due to come out of the oven, begin the bechamel sauce.
- Place the milk, butter, flour, salt and pepper, and garlic in a large saucepan. Heat oven medium-low heat and whisk until simmering and thickened. Reduce heat as low as possible and simmer for 10 minutes more.
- Sieve the sauce into a large bowl and add the cream. Adjust seasoning and add another quarter of nutmeg.
- Preheat oven to 350°F (Gas mark 4, 180°C).
- Now for the assembly. Organize your materials in the order in which you will use them, with the baking dish on a cookie sheet (to catch spillage) in the middle.
- Spread a thin layer of the ragú bolognese on the bottom of the pan. Cover with ¼ of the bechamel sauce, diced mozzarella and a sprinkling of Parmesan cheese. Add a layer of lasagna noodles (They don't need to be cooked, the large amount of sauce cooks the noodles). Repeat in this manner, finishing off with a top layer of cream sauce and a coating of Parmesan cheese.
- Place in oven (be sure to keep the baking sheet underneath!) and bake for 45-50 minutes or until golden brown and bubbling.
Nutrition Facts : Calories 752.8, Fat 47.1, SaturatedFat 24.2, Cholesterol 140.7, Sodium 579.3, Carbohydrate 47.5, Fiber 2.5, Sugar 3.9, Protein 32.2
LASAGNA BOLOGNESE (LASAGNA AL FORNO)
Even though my roots are from Western Europe, I feel my blood is full of Italian.....can't get enough! If you want to wow them, put the extra time into this recipe. Make ahead and refrigerate or freeze until ready to use. First is a Sugo di carne (tomato sauce), then a Balsamella sauce (Italian white sauce). Update 4/2010: Due to 2 comments I'm suggesting you use 3-4 T flour to thicken sauce but not too thick that it won't pour easily on top, if too thick, add a little milk a tablespoons at a time. Hope this helps!
Provided by Southern Lady
Categories European
Time 2h5m
Yield 9-12 serving(s)
Number Of Ingredients 18
Steps:
- TOMATO SAUCE.
- Place oil and butter in a saucepan, and turn the heat to medium.
- When the butter starts foaming, add the diced onion, carrot, celery, and garlic.
- Sauté and stir until the onion is soft and translucent.
- This is the time to add the ground meat if using.
- Stir with a wooden spoon, and break the meat into small bits. Cook until the meat is fully browned.
- Add the wine, salt and pepper (to taste). Turn the heat to high, and let the wine evaporate. (Posting of 1/4 cup wine would not register correctly when entering recipe).
- Add the tomato, nutmeg, and milk (milk helps cut down on acidity). When the sauce starts boiling, turn the heat to low.
- Cover the saucepan and simmer slowly for about 1 hour, stirring occasionally.
- WHITE SAUCE.
- Place butter in a saucepan and turn the heat to low. When the butter is melted, remove the saucepan from the stove.
- Add the flour, stirring continuously until golden.
- Add the milk a little at a time. Put the saucepan back on the stove and slowly stir with a wooden spoon, until the sauce starts boiling and becomes thicker.
- Turn heat off. Add salt to taste, and stir in the 1 oz. grated parmigiano cheese and pinch of nutmeg.
- PASTA.
- Begin cooking lasagna pasta in salted water as directed on package. Prepare al dente. To stop the cooking process, run cold water over drained pasta.
- While pasta is cooking, begin.
- PREHEAT oven to 350 degrees.
- Grease heavily a large 13x9 baking dish.
- Spread 2-3 Tbs. of tomato sauce over the bottom of the baking dish.
- Place one layer of pasta over sauce in dish.
- Spread with tomato sauce but not so thick you can't see pasta showing thru.
- Spread with Balsamella white sauce. Try to pour as evenly as possible but don't blend. Not all tomato sauce should be covered.
- Top with 2 ozs grated parmigiano reggiano cheese.
- Repeat two times.
- Top layer will be a beautiful marble of white sauce over the tomato sauce.
- Bake for about 25 - 30 minutes. Doneness is when you fork the lasagna, it will pull out easily from the pasta.
- Serve hot.
Nutrition Facts : Calories 286.4, Fat 22.1, SaturatedFat 11.7, Cholesterol 48.8, Sodium 496.6, Carbohydrate 10.2, Fiber 1.2, Sugar 2.6, Protein 11.6
Tips:
- Use fresh, high-quality ingredients. This will make a big difference in the flavor of your lasagna.
- Don't overcook the noodles. They should be al dente, or slightly firm to the bite.
- Use a variety of cheeses. This will give your lasagna a more complex flavor.
- Don't skimp on the sauce. The sauce is what really makes lasagna special.
- Let the lasagna rest for at least 15 minutes before serving. This will allow the flavors to meld together.
Conclusion:
Lasagna is a delicious and versatile dish that can be enjoyed by people of all ages. Whether you're making it for a special occasion or just a weeknight dinner, these tips will help you make the best lasagna possible. So what are you waiting for? Start cooking!
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