Sissy's Lasagne

Sissy's Lasagne

My sister’s lasagna is always a crowd pleaser. This is a hearty meal in itself, but paired with a fresh salad and some garlic bread and now it’s a dinner party! This easy and fairly inexpensive recipe can be made the day of or frozen to enjoy at a later time. This recipe will make two half sheet aluminum style pans.

Ingredients:

  • 2 boxes of Lasagna noodle
  • 2 package of Italian Sausage
  • 2 lb. of ground turkey
  • 1 large jar of your favorite marinara sauce – I prefer to use Prego
  • 1/4 cup of sugar – or to taste
  • 1 large bag of Mozzarella cheese already shredded
  • 1 large tub of cottage cheese
  • Italian seasoning

Directions:

Pre-heat oven to 350 degree.

Get a large pot of water boiling for your lasagna noodles. Once the water starts to boil you can partially cook your noodles so that they are soft and pliable. Do not cook them all the way through. You want them to still have quite a bite to them. I like to put them on a sheet pan and separate them with parchment paper in between. This way when I’m ready to layer everything is ready to go.

In a separate pot you want to start your meat cooking. Take all the Italian sausages out of their casings and start them cooking. Then start to break up your ground turkey meat and cook both of these meats thoroughly. You don’t have to season the meat at this time because the sausages are heavily seasoned already. Once the meat is cooked through, you’ll want to add the marinara sauce to the meat pot. If some reason your meat has plenty of liquid or grease remove this with a large spoon before adding your marinara sauce. Give this a good stir and give it a taste. If your meat sauce is tart, you can add the sugar a little at a time. Keep tasting until it balances out.

Now you can start to layer your lasagna. Put a little marinara sauce on the bottom of your pan so the noodles won’t stick once baked. Put one layer of noodles, one layer of meat sauce, mozzarella cheese, and dollops of the cottage cheese. Then start the process all over again. Until you get to your top layer of noodles and add the marinara sauce and a final blanket of mozzarella cheese. Add your Italian seasoning all over the top of your cheese. Put into your pre-heated oven, on the middle rack, for 40-45 min or until the lasagna is heated completely through. Let sit for 15 min. to settle and then enjoy!

Or you can let cool completely then, tightly cover with foil and freeze up to two months. When ready to enjoy, let lasagna thaw out in the refrigerator and bake at 350 degrees covered for 50 min., then uncovered for the remaining 20 min. Check temperature to ensure center is at 160 degrees. If n0t bake til temperature is reached.

Enjoy!

Note: 12/3/19 I got a call from my sister to correct the her recipe. So, I made modifications to the Italian sausage and amount of turkey meat needed. I know the video doesn’t show that amount of meat but the concept is the same.