Weeknight Spinach and Ricotta Lasagna

Save yourself time and money: You don’t need to boil the noodles, NOR do you need to buy the “oven-ready” variety. Regular, dried lasagna sheets, when layered with the wet ingredients, will soften on their own in the oven as the whole lasagna bakes.

Come on, jarred sauce is fine and perfect for a quick weeknight meal! But if you really can't bring yourself to open a jar, try Marcella Hazan's three ingredient sauce recipe: a big 28 oz can of good quality tomatoes, simmered with 5Tb of butter and a halved onion for half an hour/40 mins while you preheat the oven and get everything else mixed together. Remove the onion, mash or blitz the tomatoes, season with salt, then feel smug about yourself as everything bakes.

No need to use lasagne. You can use any pasta and layer it. "Pasta al forno".

Some criticism has been leveled at the creator of this recipe, I'd like to remind you this is for a quick weeknight supper. I have for a long time used RAO's marinara sauce as a base for my Sunday sauce and add sauted chopped onions, garlic and anything else that sounds good from the vegetable drawer. It's a great base. A good one to have in the pantry...

I love a jar of Rao’s (cue: clutch pearls) sauce, been using it for decades and have pleased many palates with it. Also no bake lasagna sheets are great, too. The smugness and culinary haughtiness in these notes is laughable. Of COURSE I’ve made my own sauce, but I work full time and fast/easy is nice. I will say I am a bit confused as to the reason for breaking up the lasagna sheets and 2 cups of stock sounds like a watery mess. But hey, I’ll give it a whirl. The end result sure is prettI l

I think of this as “cheater’s lasagne” and I’ve been making it for years. A couple of small differences: mix the ricotta and spinach together with one egg, layer the sauce, intact noodles and ricotta mixture as you would any lasagne. Top with sauce and mozzarella. If you want to get fancy, sprinkle some Parmesan on top, too.

I’ve made a lot of lasagnas the laborious way you’re “supposed” to: soaking or boiling the noodles, sauce from scratch, grated parm with the ricotta, all the layering. I put this lasagna together in about 20 minutes, following the directions to a T except that I heeded the advice of another commenter and went easy on the broth, and I added a bit of fresh basil to a jar of Rao’s. Delicious. My toddler liked it better than my traditional version. And I wasn’t exhausted. Never going back!

I’m not seeing why one would break up the pasta sheets instead of layering them as usual? Mixing broken ones with the spinach, ricotta, and marinara sauce sounds like a recipe (pardon the pun) for a big honking mess.

This is called weeknight lasagna for a reason, people!— it is quick to come together and delicious for when you’ve worked 8 plus hours and are not in for a project (once I invited a friend for lasagna on a weeknight and then made the sauce, ricotta, and noodles from scratch— 3 hours later we dined at 9pm— this was silly for a Tuesday). Use jarred sauce that doesn’t have sugar or tomato paste and you’ll be fine (I love the Victoria brand). Crush the noodles so you don’t have to fuss over layering

Why not mix all of this in the baking pan to reduce the clean up and expatiate this dish?

This was very good! Surprisingly good. I used Rao's arrabbiata which added a kick and backed off the red pepper to 1/2 tsp. Used the full 32 oz bottle. I would use a little less ricotta next time because it was a little runny. Also would add more mozzarella next time. But will def do this again - was a family hit.

Can this be made with fresh rather than frozen spinach?

Kite Hill plant based ricotta works.

Yes, what Betty-Anne said! If I want to make this during the week, I’m not going to make homemade sauce, even if it “only takes 20 minutes,” or whatever. That’s 20 minutes to hang out with my family, walk my dog, or get extra sleep. That’s the whole point! Yeah, yeah, we know all of you can make true homemade lasagne. That’s not this recipe. I’m excited for a streamlined, maybe less excellent, but still good version.

I use jarred sauce, but it is from my own organically home grown tomatoes and herbs, canned by myself at the height of season. Life changing to those uninitiated. We also make our own compost and I harvest the seeds for the next year from the previous, so these tomatoes have a lot of *goût de terroir* if you will.