Lasagna with Homemade Chunky Tomato Sauce (Vegetarian)

Our son Dov joined us for dinner and I wanted to spoil him with a nice home cooked meal so I decided to make lasagna amongst other things. Let me preface this by saying that the tomato sauce is one that you can use in any recipe requiring tomato sauce, not just this one. It’s not difficult to make, just give it 40-60 minutes cook time but there isn’t a great deal of fussing involved. The resulting sauce is a whole ‘nother thing than purchased tomato sauce, trust me here, but when under pressure and in a hurry, you can always use bottled sauce for the recipe.

Once the sauce is done, putting it together is a snap. So start by gathering your sauce ingredients.

You may note the sugar and in horror say, no no, not in MY sauce. But nay nay, you will need it. Tomatoes are acidic and can actually give you a burnt/bitter flavor if you don’t counteract that with a bit of sugar. It’s two tablespoons in 6 cups of sauce so you can be calm. Don’t skip it!

K. You chop up your onion, and as you may already know, DH is anti-garlic if it’s in his face, so to speak, so I have to hide it in the ingredients just to flavor but not to overpower or be too evident. If you are bold garlic consumers and don’t care, just chop your peeled garlic but set aside. Never sautee the onion with the garlic, always onion first to the degree needed and garlic very briefly so it doesn’t burn or it gets bitter.

So into the stainless pot the onion and olive oil go and gently saute the onion till golden.

Once golden, I added the small whole garlic (or whole garlic cloves, whichever you have) or chopped garlic as is your preference, cooking very briefly till golden. Remove briefly from heat and add the crushed tomatoes, tomato paste and parsley, thyme, oregano, salt and pepper and the sugar. One more note about the dried spices. Strangely, I infinitely prefer dried parsley for this. Why, you may rightfully query? It’s got a nice sweetness to it which pairs well with the acidic tomato, just sayin’.

Stir into the onion garlic mixture, place on low/medium heat and let come to a burble, keep on a simmer, stirring to combine and set with a cover on a tilt to cook about 40 minutes or till sauce starts to thicken nicely.

Once thickish, turn off flame and let cool somewhat while you prepare the lasagna ingredients and preheat the oven to 375 F/190 C. (By the way, now’s when I fish out the whole garlic cloves. But that’s for DH.)

Gather the lasagna ingredients.

Take your farmer type cheese (if using ricotta, no need to crumble) and crumble it into a bowl and add the egg.

Good. Now we start to assemble the lasagna. Just note if the tomato sauce is very thick, you will need to add about half a cup of water to thin it enough to cook the noodles properly. Okay.

Start with about a cup to a cup and a half of sauce directly on the bottom of your pan like so:

Place the lasagna (no boil) noodles right on top, add about half the cheese/egg mixture and put about 3/4 cup grated cheese on top of that.

Now build the next layer with the noodles, sauce, cheese and grated cheese, adding one more layer of noodles on top of that

and slather remaining sauce on top

and cover with the rest of the grated cheese.

Now take a piece of parchment paper and oil spray thoroughly and lightly cover oil side down (don’t stick down hard onto cheese) the pan of lasagna and on top of that cover tightly with tin foil. A note. Make sure the sauce is a bit liquidy to allow the noodles to cook properly. If you think it’s too thick, add about half a cup of water around the edges of the lasagna (not on top of the cheese and sauce) or simply add the liquid to the sauce before building the lasagna as mentioned above.

Okay. This is the good part. You can let your lasagna sit like this uncooked for a few hours before you’re ready to serve it. Just allow about an hour and a half cooking time. It might go faster but you have to time it. Then let sit about 10 or so minutes to settle before cutting and serving. One more nice possibility. Prepare the whole thing, cook completely and let cool. Cut into squares (I am generous and cut 9 big squares from this). It is much much easier to cut a cooled lasagna. Refrigerate till you see the whites of your guests eyes, heat the oven to 375/190 and heat the lasagna again (covered) till hot about 15 or so minutes. It will be amazing and you don’t have to worry about timing. Any way you slice it (heh) it’s a delicious mouthful and you’ll have them clamoring for more!

Homemade Chunky Tomato Sauce

Yields about 6 cups

1 medium onion peeled and chopped

3 tablespoons olive oil

4-5 cloves garlic peeled (and chopped) or left whole for those who want a milder garlic taste

1 tablespoon dried parsley

2 teaspoons thyme

1 teaspoon oregano

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

2 teaspoons salt (taste and adjust if necessary)

2 tablespoons sugar

2 800 grams (28 ounces x 2) cans of crushed tomatoes

240 grams (8.4 ounces) tomato paste

A note. You can add 1/4 cup of white wine to this along with the tomatoes if you choose. No need to adjust ingredients.

Directions:

In a stainless pan place olive oil and chopped onion, sauteeing lightly till golden. Add garlic and stir briefly into oil and onion just till golden. Pull pot off flame, add parsley, thyme, oregano, pepper, salt and sugar and stir into pot adding the crushed tomatoes and tomato paste. Put back on fire and cook on low simmer for about 40 minutes or till somewhat thickened. Set aside to cool.

Lasagna with Homemade Chunky Tomato Sauce

15 lasagna noodles (approximately)

500 grams dry farmer cheese (or ricotta), crumbled into a bowl

2 1/2 cups (about 200 grams) grated cheese

1 egg

Oil spray

Parchment paper

Tin Foil

Rectangular lasagna pan

6 cups (approximately 1,440 ml) chunky homemade tomato sauce (recipe above) (alternatively, measure out the 6 cups from bottled sauce)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 F/190 C.

Mix together the crumbled farmer cheese or the ricotta (no need to crumble) with the egg. Set aside.

Make sure the tomato sauce isn’t too thick, enough liquidy so the noodles cook properly. If need be, add half a cup of water to the sauce before using. Take a lasagna rectangular pan and ladle about a cup to a cup and a half of the sauce directly onto the bottom of the pan. Lay the noodles in a row, barely overlapping in three lines. If you need to break a noodle or so to cover edges, do so. Layer about half the farmer cheese egg mixture on top and about 3/4 cup of grated cheese on top. Do another layer of noodles, sauce and the two cheeses. Put the last layer of noodles on top and slather the remaining amount of sauce over all. Sprinkle the rest of the grated cheese on top. Heavily oil spray a piece of parchment paper. Lightly cover top of pan with parchment paper, oil side down and tightly cover the top with tin foil.

Bake covered for about 1 hour. Uncover and continue baking for about 15 minutes. If top doesn’t brown sufficiently to your liking, turn on low broil and broil about 3 minutes or till top browns – keep an eye on it so it doesn’t burn! Allow to sit about 10 or so minutes to set up and slice into generous slices. Nice with lettuce salad and honey mustard dressing.

Note – can sit a few hours uncooked till an hour and a half or so before you plan to serve it. Also can be fully cooked, cooled and sliced and reheated till bubbly and hot. Very easy to cut cooled lasagna.