Your Lasagna Isn't Traditionally Italian Until You Add This To It

A hearty tray of lasagna layered with sauce, meat, and cheese is a surefire way to the heart — and to the cobblestone streets of Italy. However, while your favorite tried-and-true lasagna recipe made with creamy ricotta cheese and spinach might be delicious, we hate to break it to you that your lasagna isn't traditionally Italian, really, until you add a particular creamy ingredient: béchamel. The creamy cheese sauce made from a simple ingredient base of butter, flour, and milk is key to creating a true lasagna within which the dish's flavors and textures bake and meld together like a true Italian symphony.

While there certainly are several regional varieties of lasagna, the most quintessential version of the Italian dish is Lasagna alla Bolognese, which originated in Bologna in the Emilia-Romagna region — a true food lover's paradise situated in the north-central region of the country. Traditionally, the dish is made simply by layering bolognese, a deeply flavorful tomato meat sauce, with fresh pasta, béchamel, and a sprinkling of Parmesan cheese on top before baking in the oven until melty and crisp. While the celebratory dish has been adapted across the Italian diaspora, giving way to Italian-American riffs on lasagna that are made with ricotta and mozzarella cheese, these recipes (while tasty) diverge from the authentic Italian method, made with béchamel sauce and hearty ragu.

Lasagna's essential béchamel might bring up culinary overwhelm, or further associations with Italian-Americanized staples like jarred Alfredo sauce. But rest assured; a good homemade béchamel is much more complex, and it comes together at home in about 10 minutes. Making the sauce in a heavy-bottom pan simply involves melting butter and gradually combining it with all-purpose flour to make a roux, the base for lasagna's creamy sauce component. Next, warmed milk is whisked into the roux until the sauce is smooth, before adding optional yet flavorful ingredients like Parmesan cheese and nutmeg. From there, you can cook your pasta and prepare the bolognese with ground beef, and you'll be well on your way to making an authentic lasagna well-suited for a feast — or lunch at your friend's nonna's house. 

Lasagna alla Bolognese is the ride-or-die of Italian lasagnas, as far as traditional Italian recipes go, and it's good to know the proper way to prepare the dish. This said, of course, you don't always have to stick to the classics. (Though once you try lasagna with béchamel, we suspect you won't look back). You can still add ricotta to your lasagna like they do in Naples over the holidays, or look to other Italian regional varieties to inspire your recipe. Think: Lasagna from the north made with radicchio and sausage, or Lasagne alla Genovese made with pesto, béchamel, and potatoes. Buon appetito, truly.