The ultimate lasagne
- Prepare
- 30 mins to 1 hour
- Cook
- over 2 hours
- Serve
- Serves 10
- Dietary
- Nut-free
The ultimate homemade lasagne, made with beef and pork, fresh pasta, Italian mozzarella and creamy béchamel. Delicious.
For this recipe you will need an ovenproof lasagne dish (approx. 30x20cm/12x8in).
Ingredients
For the ragu
- 4 tbsp olive oil
- 4 celery sticks, finely chopped
- 2 carrots, finely chopped
- 1 medium onion, finely chopped
- 2 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
- 1 sprig rosemary
- 700g/1lb 9oz beef mince
- 340g/12oz pork mince
- 1 bottle red wine (750ml/26½fl oz)
- 2 x 400g tins tomatoes, roughly chopped
- 200ml/7fl oz beef stock, plus extra if needed
- salt and freshly ground black pepper
For the bechamel sauce
- 1 litre/1¾ pints full-fat milk
- 2 bay leaves
- ¼ onion
- pinch freshly grated nutmeg
- 50g/2oz butter
- 50g/2oz plain flour
For the lasagne
- 14 sheets fresh lasagne pasta
- 3 x 125g/4½oz balls mozzarella, cut into small cubes
- small handful grated Parmesan
- freshly ground black pepper
- 2 tbsp butter
Method
For the ragu, heat the olive oil in a frying pan over a low heat. Gently fry the celery, carrots and onion for approximately 15 minutes, until softened and golden. Add the garlic and rosemary and fry for 2 minutes.
Add the beef and pork mince. Increase the heat and cook until the liquid from the meat has evaporated.
Pour in approximately 400ml/14fl oz red wine and stir well. Reduce the heat and simmer for approximately 45 minutes.
Once the wine has evaporated, add the tomatoes and stock. Leave the mixture uncovered to cook slowly for 2 hours. Top up with more warm stock if necessary to prevent the sauce drying out. Season with salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste.
To make the bechamel sauce, pour the milk into a large non-stick saucepan. Add the bay leaves, onion and nutmeg and gently bring to the boil.
In a separate saucepan, melt the butter and add the flour. Beat well and cook for 2 minutes. Remove the milk from the heat and add a little to the flour mixture. Combine well, and when all the milk has been absorbed, add a little more. Continue to do this until all the milk has been added, whisking continually.
Preheat the oven to 180C/160C Fan/Gas 4.
For the lasagne, blanch the pasta in salted boiling water for 3 minutes.
Spoon a quarter of the bechamel sauce into the bottom of a lasagne dish in an even layer, then cover with a third of the ragu. Top with a layer of pasta sheets. Scatter over about a third of the mozzarella and Parmesan and season with freshly ground black pepper. Repeat the layers of bechamel, ragu, pasta and cheeses to make about three layers, finishing with a layer of béchamel and any remaining cheese.
Dot knobs of butter over the surface and bake for 30 minutes, or until golden-brown on top and completely cooked through.
Recipe tips
This recipe uses both pork and beef mince to make a traditional Italian ragu. It's slowly cooked to bring out the sweetness of the tomatoes, ensure the meat is beautifully tender and the sauce thick and rich.
When making the bechamel sauce, flavouring the milk with onion, bay and nutmeg makes all the difference and is very easy to do.
Using fresh pasta is best when your sauce has simmered away for hours until it's quite thick. If you want to use dried lasagne sheets, that's fine, but we recommend soaking them in boiling water for a 5 minutes before using. The packet instructions say you don't have to presoak dried lasagne sheets, but that does rely on the sauce being really quite wet.
Using fresh pasta and a thick ragu also means the lasagne doesn't need to rest before serving (normally you'd do this to avoid a sloppy lasagne).
