Except for the far prettier look, what do lasagna roll-ups have over the usual layered kind?
The roll-ups are less messy to serve. One rolled lasagna per person and there’s no need to cut through the layers of pasta, meat, sauce and cheese. The serving dish doesn’t look like a typhoon had gone through it after two persons have cut through and taken their portions.
Meaty Lasagna Roll-ups
Recipe byA party dish to make everyone gasp with delight! It looks pretty fancy, I know, but if you feel it's too much work to prepare lasagna this way, know that all the preparation can be done a day ahead. Make the roll-ups, arrange in a bakig dish, add sauce and cheese, cover baking dish, keep in the fridge overnight, take it out while you reheat the oven then pop it in.
Ingredients
- 4 to 6 lasagna cooked in salted water and drained
- 1 ½ cups tomato sauce (we prefer homemade!)
- 1 ½ cups shredded cheese I used a Dutch cheese with chilies
- 1 ½ cups spinach blanched, squeezed and chopped
- 3 cups chunky meat sauce chilled (see notes after the recipe)
- chiffonaded basil to garnish
Instructions
- Spread the cooked lasagna on a rack to allow water to drip off.
- Preheat the oven to 375F.
- Spread a couple of tablespoonfuls of tomato sauce on the bottom of a baking pan that should be large enough to hold all the rolled lasagna noodles.
- Stir together one cup of shredded cheese and the chopped spinach.
- Lay a lasagna noodle flat. Spread two or more tablespoons of the cheese-spinach mixture on the noodle.
- To the spinach-cheese mixture with a couple of tablespoonfuls of the cold meat sauce.
- Roll the lasagna and immediately and arrange, seam side down, on the baking tray.
- Repeat until all the noodles have been filled and rolled.
- Spoon the remaining tomato sauce on top, around and between the rolled noodles.
- Top each rolled noodle with shredded cheese.
- Bake, covered, for about 20 minutes or until the meat sauce is heated through, the tomato sauce is bubbly and the cheese is melted.
- Sprinkle chiffonaded basil over the meaty lasagna roll-ups before serving.
Notes
Our default pasta meat sauce:
Slit Italian sausages, press out the sausage meat and discard the skins.
Spread the sausage meat on a pan and allow to brown in its own fat (read why browning matters).
Pour in tomato sauce and simmer until thick.
You really don’t have to go through sauteeing spices and herbs if you use homemade tomato sauce.
But why does the chunky meat sauce have to be chilled before spreading on noodles? To make handling easier.
Updated from a recipe originally published in December 21, 2014
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