Lasagna Bolognese Recipe
This is my family favourite lasagna recipe. It is made with a good pot of bolognese sauce and homemade lasagna sheets. Try it out yourself!
Yield: 4 people
Equipment
- 1 Baking dish ~ 24x19x7,5 cm
- 1 Pasta maker optional
Ingredients you need
Ragù
- 80 g Bacon cubes
- 1 Onion
- 800 g Minced meat
- 4 Small carrots
- 4 tbsp Tomato paste
- 2 tsp Salt
- 2 tsp Ground black pepper
- 2 tsp Fresh/dry herbs Thyme, Rosmary
- 200 - 300 ml Red Wine
- 200 ml Beef broth
- 100 - 150 ml Heavy cream
Lasagna pasta sheet
- 150 g Durum Wheat Semolina
- 150 g All-purpose Flour
- 2 Eggs
- 0.5 tsp Salt
- 2 tbsp Olive oil optional
- Water The amount of water depends on the texture of the dough.
Lasagna
- 30 g Parmesan cheese
- 400 g Crème fraîche
- 250 g Shredded mozzarella cheese
Directions
Ragù
- Dice onions and carrots.
- In a suitable pot, melt butter on medium heat and add bacon cubes.
- Once bacon cubes turn brown, add onion dices into the pot.
- Add ground meat, when the diced onion becomes translucent. Break up the minced meat into tiny pieces with a wood spoon and cook them until brown.
- After which, add in carrots, tomato paste, herbs and seasoning to the meat mixture.
- Pour red wine into the pot. Close the lid of the pot for a few minutes, in order to evaporate some wine.
- Pour beef broth into the sauce.
- Cover the pot with a suitable lid, reduce the heat to low and simmer the sauce for about 30 minutes. Stir the sauce occasionally to prevent burning.
- Finish the sauce with some heavy cream.
Lasagna Pasta Sheet
- In a suitable mixing bowl, add flour, semolina, salt, olive oil and eggs.
- You can either mix the ingredients with your hands or with an electric hand mixer. Depending on the size of the eggs you are using, water may or may not be added to the dough. When the ingredients do not mix, it means that your dough is too dry. Add a little water to the dough. Important: In order to get the perfect dough, add water a little by little. Add enough water until you get a non-sticky dough.
- All the dough rest for about 30 minutes. Cover the bowl with a kitchen towel or wrap the dough in a cling wrap.
- Spread some all-purpose flour onto your working top. Once your dough has rested, cut the dough into three small pieces.
- Without a pasta maker: Spread flour onto a rolling pin and roll out your pasta dough with the rolling pin until you reach the desired thickness. If you could, try to achieve a rectangle shape of your pasta dough. If the pasta is not perfectly shaped, you can either trim it or just leave it as it is.
- With a pasta maker: Spread flour on a rolling pin and roll out your pasta dough with the rolling pin until the dough could fit the largest gap (usually the first level) of the pasta maker. It is alright if your pasta is not perfectly shaped, you can either trim it or just leave it as it is. Thereafter, roll out the pasta on the second level of the pasta maker. Repeat the process until you reach your desired thickness. I usually roll out only three times because I prefer to have a thicker lasagna pasta sheet.
Lasagna:
- Preheat the baking oven to 220 °C.
- Start with a layer of ragù. Pour some ragù to the bottom of your baking dish.
- Thereafter, dust some Parmesan cheese over your bolognese sauce.
- Put several tablespoons of crème fraîche on top of the sauce.
- Cut a suitable length of the homemade lasagna pasta sheet and put it gently over your ragù layer. Cover the sauce completely with your lasagna sheets.
- Repeat step 2 to 5 several times until you reach the last layer of your lasagna pasta.
- Repeat step 2 to 4 for one last time, and finish the baking dish with one generous layer of shredded mozzarella cheese.
- Bake the lasagna bolognese at 220 °C for 15 minutes.
- Once it is baked, allow it to cool down for several minutes and cut the lasagna into a few pieces. Serve it with a nice salad.
