Crowd pleasing, family favourite, Sunday classic, the ultimate comfort food… A dish so wholesome, so good that you can’t put the fork down, makes you feel all warm inside, makes you happy… Yes yes you guessed it, I’m talking about lasagna : )
Whenever I make a big batch of bolognese sauce, I first make a gorgeous lasagna with it. One with plenty sauce, with homemade béchamel and homemade fresh pasta. I’m gonna be honest here, I’m quite famous with my lasagna, it’s definitely one of my best dishes. In the last couple of years I’ve been making vegetarian versions more often than the classic Lasagna Bolognese. Using spinach, mushrooms and my personal favourite pumpkin and swiss chard a lot. Vegetable lasagna is certainly much lighter than the meaty version but trust me, no less comforting.
I roast the pumpkin first with some fresh sage leaves, a little salt and pepper, freshly grated nutmeg, a couple of garlic cloves, some chilli flakes and a drizzle of evoo until soft. Then I sauté the swiss chard with some onion. I prepare my veg as well as my fresh pasta the day before so I’m not in the kitchen for a whole day.
Béchamel sauce is also an important component of lasagna and is best homemade. It’s really very simple to prepare and much more delicious than the store bought, jarred stuff. The classic recipe calls for 100 gr of both flour and butter to 1 lt of milk. I like my béchamel a little thinner especially for lasagna so I use 75 gr of each flour and butter to 1 lt of milk. Béchamel sauce does not traditionally contain any cheese, when you add cheese to it (gruyere) it is called Mornay Sauce.
Then there is the lasagna sheets, I always prefer homemade but it is not a must. You can use shop bought fresh or dry pasta too.
I’d like to briefly tell you how I make my fresh pasta.
It’s usually 1 whole egg per 100 gr of flour and I make my dough with three eggs which makes just the perfect amount of pasta for the oven dish that I use.
- Place your flour(s) on the worktop ( ideally a large wooden board is what’s best for making fresh pasta)
- Make a wide hole in the centre and place your eggs. Using a fork break the eggs by whisking gently and start mixing in the flour little by little.
- When the eggs get all mixed, start kneading. Knead for about 6-7 mins until you have a smooth and elastic dough. The longer you knead the better it is. I personally like to do this manually but if you prefer to use your stand mixer, by all means go ahead.
- Wrap it with plastic wrap and rest for 30-40 mins at room temp. Resting your dough is very important as it needs to relax after all the kneading. If you skip this part you’ll have difficulty when rolling. You can store your well wrapped dough in the fridge for up to 3 days if not using straight away.
- Divide your pasta into 6 pieces and working with one piece at a time keep the rest wrapped until needed.
- Flatten the piece of dough in your hand and dust lightly with flour on both sides. Start feeding it through the widest setting of your pasta machine (I use the Kitchenaid pasta roller). Folding and rotating, repeat for a few times on the same setting to smooth the dough. Change the setting to the narrower one and continue passing through twice on each setting, dusting lightly if it seems to stick to the pasta roller.
- When you reach the desired thickness (I prefer 4 on Kitchenaid) cut the sheets into rectangles and place on a floured kitchen towel.
- 1 kg pumpkin or butternut squash
- fresh sage leaves
- 2 cloves of garlic
- ¼ tsp finely grated nutmeg
- salt, pepper
- 2 Tbs olive oil
- .
- 2 bunches of swiss chard
- 1 medium onion
- salt, pepper
- 2-3 Tbs olive oil
- .
- BESCAMEL SAUCE
- 1 lt milk
- 75 gr flour (1 cup+1 Tbs)
- 75gr butter (about 5 Tbs)
- ¼ tsp finely grated nutmeg
- 1 bay leaf
- salt, pepper
- .
- 200 gr grated mozzarella (almost 2 cups)
- 100-150 gr grated parmesan (1-1⅕ cups)
- 5-6 tsp butter
- .
- lasagna sheets
- Chop the pumpkin into chunky pieces and place on an oven tray lined with baking paper.
- Spread around the fresh sage leaves and garlic cloves, sprinkle with nutmeg, a little salt and pepper. Drizzle with olive oil and mix, cook in a preheated oven (200 C/ 390 F) for 40 to 45 minutes.
- To prepare the swiss chard; heat the oil in a fry pan and add in the finely diced onion.
- Throw in the sliced stalks of the swiss chard and cook for a few mins. Add in the roughly chopped leaves and cook for 5-10 mins on low. You can add a couple of Tbs of water if it seems to get too dry. Season with salt and pepper.
- FOR THE BESCAMEL SAUCE first start with a roux. Place butter in a sauce pan and heat. When melted add in the flour and cook for a few minutes, stirring constantly until the mixture gets a light golden colour.
- Pour in the milk while whisking and throw in the bay leaf if using. Cook on a medium heat for about 10 mins, stirring constantly.
- Take off the heat as bubbles start to appear. Season with salt, pepper and finely grated nutmeg.
- Let cool giving it a whisk every so often to avoid a skin forming on the surface.
- Once you have all the components ready, you can start making the lasagna.
- First we need to precook the lasagna sheets in salted boiling water for 1 minute. Do not crowd the pot, drop in 4-5 sheets at a time so they don't stick to each other. After boiling for 1 min. transfer into a bowl filled with cold water in order to stop them from cooking further. Once cold place in a colander to drain off access water.
- Spread a ladleful of béchamel sauce over the bottom of a 10x12 inch oven dish and arrange the first layer of lasagna sheets.
- Start layering first with more béchamel then ⅓ of the pumpkin and ⅓ of the swiss chard. Sprinkle a handful of mozzarella and parmesan cheese. Repeat two more times. (Make sure you leave some béchamel for the top)
- Top with the forth layer of lasagna sheets and spread over the remaining béchamel. Top with mozzarella and parmesan and dot with 5-6 tsp of butter.
- Bake at 180 C (375 F) for 40-45 minutes until slightly browned.
- Remove from the oven and rest for 20 mins before serving.
Some packaged dry lasagna sheets don't require to be pre cooked and that's fine if you are making a classic lasagna as the sauce will cook the pasta. But in our case the filling we are using is pretty dry so do precook your lasagna sheets even if the packaging says you don't need to : )