This one goes into the top 10 recipe hall of fame in our house.
Don’t ask me for the other 9. All I know is that this one is in there.
I was thinking about how long it’s been since I made lasagna.
Then I was thinking about the fact that I didn’t have any gravy on hand.
And lasagna is one of those things that I will NEVER use store bought sauce for. You can get away with it for other things, but not lasagna. Whenever a dish is only three simple components (in this case, pasta, cheese and sauce) you want to make sure that each is the best quality. And my gravy is the best quality. So lasagna was a no go.
Or so I thought.
We were watching Best Thing I Ever Ate and the one guy, Adam Gertler, was talking about his Hometown Favorite dish, spinach pizza.
And that was all I needed for inspiration.
Spinach, three cheese lasagna.
No sauce. Lots of cheese. Lots of sauteed spinach.
For this recipe you will need
- Lasagna noodles (I used 9, 3 noodles for each of the 3 layers)
- 2 bags of baby spinach
- olive oil
- salt
- pepper
- 1 egg
- mozzarella
- parmesan
- 15 oz container ricotta (why is ricotta sold in 15oz containers? why not 16? If you are doubling a recipe that calls for 8 oz or if you need 16oz you are forced to buy two containers, all for that one extra once. It’s a conspiracy!)
Okay. Sorry about that side rant.
I’m calm now.
This lasagna has a calming effect because it’s so damn good.
Preheat the oven to 400 and bring a pot of water to boil on the stove.
Drop in your lasagna noodles and cook to package directions.
Drizzle olive oil in the bottom of a large skillet and toss in your spinach.
Season with salt and pepper and cook until it is wilted down.
It always amazes how so much spinach cooks down to that little pile.
Let the spinach cool down for a few minutes.
If your pasta is done drain that and set it aside to cool.
Dump the ricotta into a bowl and add your cooled spinach and one egg. We let the spianch cool a bit so it doesn’t cook the egg.
Mix well.
Now it’s time to assemble.
Lightly oil a 9×13 baking dish and place your first layer of pasta down.
Spoon over half the ricotta spinach mixture.
Then add another layer of pasta.
Then the remaining half of the ricotta spinach
And another layer of pasta
Top with parmesan and mozzarella.
Bake for about 25-30 minutes.
The cheese will melts, the pasta will brown ever so slightly, and the layers will all sink into each other.
Let it cool for a few minutes before you slice so it doesn’t just melt all over the place.
And there you have a spinachy, cheesy plate of comfort.
PS. This is a great make ahead. I actually made it on Sunday, baked it, then popped it in the fridge. After a crazy work day, I just came home and popped it in the oven for about 10 minutes to heat it up.