One Pot Lasagna – with layers!

This One Pot Lasagna recipe is a great, easy way to get a lasagna fix. It’s all made in one pot (well, pan….) complete with layers! Aren’t you just dying to know how it’s made? 🙂

One Pot Lasagna – with layers!

“OMG, it actually has layers in it!”, my friend exclaimed when I served up this lasagna. YES, this does!

Have you seen one-pot lasagnas floating around on the internet? I think Martha Stewart started the craze. Here’s the thing though. All the ones I’ve seen don’t look like a real lasagna with layers. They are more like a pasta bake with a delicious mess of broken up lasagna sheets mixed up with meat sauce.

So, cutting to the chase – here’s a snapshot of how I make this so you get layers! The lasagna is made by using dried lasagna sheets, broken as needed, sliding them under the meat sauce in the same skillet it’s cooked in, then covering in more lasagna sheets. The sauce is a bottle-shake job, no cooking required, and the creamy layer is ricotta!

Ingredients in One Pot Lasagna

Here’s what you need to make this. The tomato passata does double duty – we use one bottle for both the meat sauce and the topping.

1. meat sauce

This is pretty much my bolognese recipe, though I use passata rather than canned tomatoes so we don’t need to simmer long enough for the tomato bits to break down. Carrot and celery are optional. They add flavour (essentially we’re making a soffrito), it fills out the meat sauce and sneaks extra veg into our day, but you don’t need to include them.

• Beef mince (ground beef) – Any fat percentage is fine though regular rather than lean will make your filling juicier and beefier (fat is where most of the flavour is!).

• Tomato passata – Pureed, strained pure tomatoes, sometimes labelled “tomato puree” in the US (here’s a photo of Mutti tomato passata sold at Walmart). It’s readily available in Australian supermarkets nowadays, alongside pasta sauces. Passata is excellent for making thick, smooth sauces without the need for simmering time to allow diced canned tomatoes to breakdown. More on tomato passata here.

• Beef stock cubes (bouillon cubes) – More flavour than salt! Works better than liquid beef stock here which you’d need to reduce a lot for the equivalent amount of flavour without making the sauce too loose. I like OXO brand because it crumbles easily.

• Sugar – Just 1/2 a teaspoon takes the sour edge off passata. We wouldn’t need this if we were slow cooking for 2 hours!

• Tomato paste – Forgot to put this in the photo. 🙂 This adds a boost of tomato flavour and helps thicken the sauce.

• Worcestershire sauce – An essential seasoning for bolognese in my world. 🙂

• Italian herbs and garlic powder – This is for the tomato sauce topping which we use to cover the top layer of lasagna sheets. Just put it straight into the jar, give it a shake and pour!

• Garlic and onion – Essential flavour base.

• Carrot and celery – As mentioned above, these are not essential but I do like to include them.

2. for assembling

The ricotta dollops are optional! They are a recent addition – a faux cheese béchamel sauce – and serious rave reviews started when I started using it, so I never stopped. But I wouldn’t go out especially to the shops just to get ricotta, unless I was cooking to impress. 🙂

• Dried lasagna sheets – This recipe is designed for dried lasagna sheets. The meat sauce is slightly looser and there’s a tomato topping, and these provide enough liquid to hydrate and cook the dried lasagna sheets in the oven. You’ll need about 250g/8oz – 7 to 8 sheets, though it will depend on the size. You need enough to cover 3 layers of your skillet.

• Ricotta – Did you know if you whisk ricotta then it turns into a texture like whipped cream that melts beautifully? 🙂 You need to use a good ricotta to do this – the type sold in baskets in vac packs, or over the counter at delis (Paesanella is my go-to brand). These have a beautiful creamy mouthful compared to the ricottas sold in tubs (like Perfect Italiano and La Stella) which tend to have a slightly powdery texture and little “curds” that remain even when whipped. It will still work though and still taste great! If you can’t find a good ricotta, the next best option is to use smooth ricotta.

• Milk – Use just a tiny amount if needed to loosen the ricotta.

• Mozzarella cheese – What is a lasagna without cheese?? 😲

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How to make Lasagna in One Pan

Today’s recipe is an upgraded version of a recipe I first shared back in 2015 which only had 2 layers of lasagna sheets and it’s only in recent years I added a third layer. To get this 3rd layer, you do need to remove half the filling into a bowl, though if you prefer to avoid this, you can stick with 2 layers if you want. 🙂

1. Meat sauce – Start by cooking the onion, garlic, celery and carrot (by the way the celery and carrot is grated which is nice and quick). Then add the beef and cook it, breaking it up as you go, until you no longer see raw beef. Do all this on high heat, we’re looking for quick dinner turnaround tonight!

   Pan – Use a fry pan / skillet that is around 26 cm wide (rim) and 5 cm deep (10.5″ / 2″). You can go larger, but then it might make sense to make a larger 2 layer one, but don’t go smaller (you’ll regret it when sauce is sloshing all over your stove).

2. Everything else – Add about two-thirds of the bottle of passata (just eye ball it), then everything else for the meat sauce (Worcestershire sauce, water, beef cubes, sugar and salt).

3. Simmer 10 minutes – Give it a good stir then when it starts simmering, lower the stove so it’s simmering gently (not spitting all over your white top). Cook for 10 minutes, stirring every now and then.

4. Shake up sauce – Meanwhile, make the sauce. Just add the Italian herbs, garlic powder, salt and water straight into the remaining passata in the bottle, and give it a good shake. Why aren’t all sauces this easy?? 😉

5. Assemble lasagna – Remove half the meat sauce into a bowl. Then slide the dried lasagna sheets under the meat sauce. I put one whole sheet in the middle then break bits for the edges.

   DON’T WORRY IF YOUR LASAGNA SHEET LAYERS AREN’T NEAT AND PERFECT!! They will not be, because those pesky dried lasagna sheets never break exactly where I’m aiming for. 🙂 Expect to create a wonky patchwork situation which is totally fine, rather, focus on full coverage for each layer, because nobody wants to be that person who ends up with all meat sauce and no lasagna sheets. 😉

6. Layer 2 – Spread the meat sauce to cover all the bottom layer of lasagna sheets, then top with another layer of lasagna sheets.

7. Cover with the meat sauce reserved in bowl.

8. Layer 3 – Then do the final lasagna sheet layer.

9. Sauce – Pour the sauce over the top.

10. Ricotta dollops – Give the ricotta a vigorous whisk to loosen until it has a whipped cream consistency. You won’t need to do this if using smooth ricotta. Then do 12 or so big dollops across the surface.

11. Cheese – Top with cheese.

12. Bake for 30 minutes uncovered until the cheese is bubbly and there are golden spots on the surface. Let it rest for 10 minutes to stabilise which will make it easier to cut and lift neat(ish) slices out. I make no promises on how perfectly symmetrical and neat your slices will look, lasagna cutting is an art, however, I fully stand behind the deliciousness of every bite!

I really feel like this takes not much more effort than a Spag Bolognese, but delivers impressive lasagna results. Even the reader feedback on the original version was enthusiastic (anything dated before today).

So if you’ve loved the original, I really think you’re going to be even more obsessed with this updated version!

Serve with a simple Garden Salad or make a Big Italian Salad, add a side of Garlic Bread and feel smug as you’re showered with praise for an incredible full-blown lasagna night with barely any of the usual effort. 🥰

Hope you love it! – Nagi x

PS To be clear, this One Pot Lasagna recipe is really, really great for the effort level, but my heart will always belong to a classic proper lasagna. However, I secretly harbour a fear that once you try this one pot version, you may never make it the proper way again….. 😭😭😭

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Watch how to make it

Original recipe published February 2015, upgraded as described in the post. But most importantly, the original recipe was published before I started including the Life of Dozer section. So of course, I had to add him. ❤️

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Remembering Dozer

Dozer’s size was a bit of a talking point. I used to describe him as a small horse!! Plus, I’m a bit….err….vertically challenged. These photos are totally true to scale. 😆

And yes, the question “who walked who??” was genuinely valid! 😅

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