10 Tips You Need When Baking Lasagna

If pasta is one of the most comforting dishes known to man, lasagna has to be one of the top contenders in the category. One of the oldest and most popular pasta shapes, lasagna is usually shaped like wide ribbons or rectangles. The dough, made from flour and eggs, is rolled into thin sheets, neatly cut, boiled, drained, and placed on several layers with fillings such as meat, cheese, or vegetables. There are several local varieties of this beloved Italian specialty, hailing from regions such as Emilia Romagna (where it originated, according to La Cucina Italiana), Naples, and Venice.

Cooking an excellent lasagna is no easy feat, as it involves skills such as handling the sticky sheets, perfecting the sauce, and calculating the ideal number of layers. But fear not. By following these steps, you'll better understand what makes great lasagna and won't ever need to buy the frozen stuff again.

As we just mentioned, making lasagna sheets from scratch is always an option for the adventurous and willful home chef. This recipe will require eggs, flour, salt, and a considerable amount of upper body strength. However, if this first step is not in your plans, some decisions will still be made in the noodle realm.

First, you've got to choose between fresh and boxed pasta. You can find fresh pasta at your local deli or gourmet store. If you're going for boxed pasta, grocery stores usually carry trusted brands like Barilla.

Now, when you choose boxed noodles, there are two more possibilities: Traditional dry pasta sheets that need to be boiled before you place them on the dish, or no-boil, or "oven ready" (the kind that you put raw into the baking dish and it comes out cooked from the oven). If you use regular dry pasta sheets, remember to use lots of water and boil the noodles in batches, so they don't stick together in the pot. Stir them and check them regularly to make sure they are al dente. Otherwise, they'll soften too much when they're in the oven.

Like pretty much all its pasta siblings, lasagna is incredibly versatile. This means you can test your skills with traditional recipes like lasagna Napoletana, which features meatballs, salami, ricotta, and hard-boiled eggs and is traditionally eaten during Carnevale. You should always try making classic lasagna Bolognese with ground beef and pancetta.

But lasagna also allows for plenty of experimentation, so get inspired and mix and match fillings like beef, sausage, or pork; cheeses like mozzarella, ricotta, Parmigiano Reggiano, and provolone; and all sorts of vegetables, from mushrooms and artichokes to eggplants and spinach. Seafood lasagna is another delicious idea — you can fill it with shrimp, crab meat, and scallops.

If you're looking for a low-carb option, you can use zucchini or eggplant slices instead of noodles. All you need to do is slice the veggies in a mandolin, grill or roast them, and layer them carefully as you would with the lasagna sheets.

Most recipes call for setting your oven to 350 F, but the baking time depends on several factors, from the size and volume of your lasagna to the temperature of the fillings. Recipe instructions will guide you in the right direction regarding temperature and time. Still, it's important to remember that the meat and vegetables you're using should be warm or, at least, at room temperature.

Before placing the dish in the oven, don't forget to cover your lasagna with a sheet of tin foil. This will concentrate the heat inside the baking dish so the lasagna doesn't dry out. Remove the foil about 50 minutes later (this also depends on the recipe you're following) and bake for five or 10 more minutes, allowing the cheese on top of the lasagna to melt and brown nicely. Make sure you're checking on your lasagna throughout the process, as you would with anything you're cooking with love.

To make the most of your leftover lasagna, you must take good care of it from the beginning. Don't let the pasta sit uncovered for more than two hours in a room that's at least 40 F, as its main ingredients (meat and cheese) can be affected by the environment, especially if you're in a warm room. Tomato sauce can also be a factor since the acid in the tomatoes can allow bacteria to proliferate.

That being said, once you're done eating, cover your leftover lasagna in an air-tight container and put it in the refrigerator, where it should keep well for three to four days. You can also freeze it for up to a month.

If you're planning ahead, it's actually a good idea to freeze your lasagna before you cook it. All you have to do is assemble it like you normally would in a container that's both freezer-safe and oven-safe, cover it tightly, and store it in the freezer.

Lasagna is a pretty hearty and complete dish on its own, so it's a good idea to serve it with a side of vegetables or a salad that balance the ingredients you're using in the pasta. For example, a fresh garden salad will complement a rich lasagna Bolognese, while a seafood lasagna can benefit from a classic Caesar. Roasted vegetables, like broccoli, Brussels sprouts, or cauliflower, are also excellent side dishes to serve with lasagna.

As for wine pairings, it all comes down to your lasagna's flavor profile, too. Lasagnas with tomato-based sauces will work very well with red wines. According to WineO Mark, Chanti, Montepulciano, and Primitivo are some of the best choices, as they cut through the tomato sauce's acidic flavors and the meat's richness.

When it comes to white lasagnas, they go great with a nice white or rosé. Chablis, for example, will bring out the flavors in the béchamel, while Chardonnay plays very well with cheese.