KITCHEN DEPARTMENT
–submitted by Peachey
I have always disliked having to mess with the cooked lasagna noodles, they have that tendency to break apart. A good friend gave me this tip many years ago… layer the noodles UNCOOKED when putting your lasagna together. You need to bake it 15 minutes longer and have a little more sauce in the lasagna. It is definitely a time saver and one less pot to clean!
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Tim says: Hmmm. I haven’t personally tried this, but it just might work. Without a doubt, though, the total amount of Peachey’s “a little more sauce” is critical. Since I can’t get a hold of Peachy to find out, if anyone tries this suggestion, please come back here and comment on how it turned out.
Tim,
Six cups of sauce should be enough. Bake for 55 – 60 minutes tightly covered. Remove cover and bake another 10 -15 minutes until cheese on top melts. If you are not sure about doneness, a paring knife inserted into the middle should slide in easily. Be sure to let the lasagna stand for 10 minutes.
Barilla brand pasta makes no bake noodles.
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I never pre-cook the noodles, but that’s what my recipe calls for so I don’t know how the amount of sauce might differ.
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not to mention scraping them up off the floor after burning your fingers on them!!
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I do it all the time. I add about 1/2 cup extra water to my sauce and it’s delicious. Sure makes it easier to make lasagne. Fighting those slippery, breaking noodles is no fun.
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I have done this before and it definitely works. Like others I put sauce on the bottom. I make sure there is a lot of sauce covering the lasagna. But better yet now the grocery stores carry the no boil lasagna noodles. I have used those and they work well also. I’m with you I don’t like dealing with boiling lasagna noodles they usually fall apart on me!
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I haven’t tried this, but I did try a tip from Joy Behar (The View) and just soaked the noodles in hot water for 20 min or so while cooking the sauce and assembling the other ingredients. Worked like a charm and no broken and torn noodles!
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I always use uncooked noodles for lasagna. Just put a layer of sauce in the bottom and layer as you always do. No need for extra sauce at all.
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I always make lasagna without precooking the noodles. Like some of the writers above, I put sauce on the bottom of the pan first before laying down the noodles. I think that’s the crucial thing. Then put sauce between layers. I don’t worry about using extra because I just put enough on there to cover up the noodles totally. No hot water, no nothing. I bake for an hour at 350, removing the foil for the last 15 minutes to brown the top. That’s all. Comes out great every time!
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Virginia’s Easy Lasagna (from Skinners Lasagna box)
Brenda Bostic Harrell
1 pound ground beef
1/2 c. grated Parmesan cheese
3 1/2 c. (32 oz. jar) thick spaghetti sauce
2 eggs
1 1/2 c. water
1/4 c. chopped parsley
2 c. (15 oz. container) ricotta cheese
1 tsp. salt
3 c. (12 oz.) shredded mozzarella cheese
8 ounces Skinner Lasagna, uncooked
Brown beef in 3-quart saucepan; drain off excess fat. Add sauce and water; simmer about 10 minutes. Combine remaining ingredients, except lasagna, for filling. Pour about 1 c. sauce on bottom of 13x9x2-inch baking pan. Layer 3 pieces of uncooked lasagna over sauce; cover with about 1 1/2 c. sauce. Spread 1/2 of cheese filling over sauce. Repeat layers of lasagna, sauce and cheese filling. Top with layer of lasagna and remaining sauce. Cover with aluminum foil and bake at 350* 55 to 60 minutes. Remove foil; bake about 10 minutes longer. Allow to stand about 10 minutes before cutting for easier handling. 8 to 10 servings.
This is how I always make lasagna!
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Thank you!
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Somewhere in my distant past I saved the following instructions:
“Do not pre-cook lasagna noodles. Instead, measure 1 1/2 cups of sauce into a larger vessel. Add 1 1/2 cups of water to the sauce. Mix together. Take 1 1/2 cups of the combined water and sauce mixture and place in bottom of the pan. Layer as usual with regular ingredients and remainder of the sauce. Cover with foil and cook 1 hour in a 350 degree oven.
I’ve never had this fail. It works like a charm! No more boiling and wrestling with wet noodles.”
Recently I bought a Pasta Boat that I saw advertised on TV and which my daughter told me a friend used with success. The boat is filled with an amount of water depending on the number of servings of pasta and it is then put into the microwave oven and cooked for a varying amount of time. It takes a bit of experimenting to get the right time depending on the type of pasta. Good results in hydrating the pasta without steaming up the kitchen in hot weather. The boat can also be used to steam vegetables without extracting nutrients as does boiling them.
Old Jack.
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They now make lasagna noodles especially for not cooking before you make the lasagna. Unless I am making individual, rolled up servings, I always use them.
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HI!
Read your comment on Lazy Lasagna and I, too, learned that one from a friend. YES – it works! I just use the spaghetti sauce in jars (I can hear you groaning!). I usually spoon a little on the bottom of the pan first, then start the layers. I never heard anything about the ‘bake 15 min. more’ part – I just bake mine for an hour at 350 degrees F. and it comes out fine. (If the cheese not as browned on top as I’d like, I just put it under the broiler for a few).
Love your blog!
Pam L.
Waterford, MI
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Tim, I agree wholeheartedly with Susan52. I was taught the Italian way to cook by one of my mothers-in-law…who was much nicer than her son. Several years ago, I tried cooking my sauce all day as usual, but not cooking the noodles. Layered everything as normal….except for the extra parmesean on the top. Dumped about a cup of hot water over the top and sealed the whole thing with foil. Baked it for almost an hour, stuck a skewer down thru foil to test for hard noodles….found none. Removed foil, added cheese, baked 15-20 more minutes to brown up. I’ll never go back……
(lasagna is number one son’s standing order for his birthday dinner…so if I’m willing to take this route, you can know that it’s fine.)
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Same as Susan52, I use “raw” noodles, make sure there’s plenty of liquid in the sauce, and make sure the pan is tightly covered with foil. (I quit boiling the noodles for lasagna more than twenty years ago. Do I win the laziness award?) :o)
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I have also tried this before and had mixed results. So now I just use noboil lasagna noodles and they work great for me, without the added sauce. I also feel that boiling the lasagna noodles before hand was a pain.
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We have been doing this for years. We do not add any extra sauce and do not cook any longer than normal. It turns out fine. We also do not use the ‘pre-cooked’ noodles, which I think are just a scam.
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I have always made my lasagna this way it comes out wonderful. It doesn’t fall apart like some recipes do. Just make sure to have alot of sauce and maybe some on the side.
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I have tried it this way before, and it works okay if you remember to add more sauce and cook it longer. But I have started putting the noodles in the sink and pouring very hot water over them, let them sit while I prepare the sauce, and it softens them just enough without making them hard to handle.
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I can’t give you an exact measurement, Tim, because I rarely measure when I cook, but I use “raw” noodles and don’t use much more sauce than I did before. I just try to make sure there’s plenty of liquid in the sauce and, for sure, seal the pan tightly with foil so the moisture stays in and cooks the noodles. I was skeptical the first time I tried it, but it worked well and was oh-so-much easier with one less big pot to wash!
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Will you try it a third time?
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No, I wont try it a third time, I like rinsing the pasta with cold water after boiling it to remove some of the starch. It’s just better.
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I have tried this twice using uncooked lasagna..The first time I added about 2 cups extra sauce, but the pasta came out “gummy”. The second time I added hot water, about 2 cups to the botton of the pan and had better results.
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