Ragu Ingredients:

• 1 Tablespoon olive oil
• 1 cup carrots (chopped)
• 1 stalk celery (chopped)
• 1 onion diced
• 4 slices of bacon
• 1/2 pound ground beef or turkey
• 1/2 pound pork (I used ground mild sausage)
• 1 jar of your favorite pasta sauce (I used Prego)
• 3 Tablespoons tomato paste
• 1/2 cup red wine
• salt and pepper, to taste

White Sauce (béchamel) Ingredients:

• 5 Tablespoons butter
• 5 Tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 4 cups milk
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 1 cup parmesan
• 1 teaspoon salt and pepper, or to taste

Lasagne Ingedients:

• 1 box of “ready for oven” lasagna noodles

Directions:

Ragu:

1. Cut bacon into 1/4 inch slices. Cook in large non-stick pan. Once done remove and reserve on plate.
2. Sauté finely finely chopped vegetables in the large pan with olive oil. Once vegetables are softened add beef and sausage, breaking up with a spatula until brown.
3. If there’s a lot of excess fat you can use a spoon to remove it from pan. Add tomato paste and mix well in mixture. Add the red wine and reduce liquid by half (gentle boil).
4. Add your favorite jar of tomato sauce and bacon previously reserved.
5. Stir everything together and head through. Take off heat and set to side.

White Sauce (béchamel):

1. Add the butter to a saucepan and cook until melted and bubbling.
2. Add the flour to the melted butter and stir to form a paste. Let flour cook for 1 minute.
3. Slowly whisk half of the milk into the butter and flour constantly whisking to avoid any lumps. Once it has started to thicken add the rest of the milk, nutmeg, parmesan, and a pinch of salt and pepper.
4. Continue to heat the sauce whilst stirring until thickened enough to coat the back of a wooden spoon. Take off the heat and set aside.

Assemble the lasagna:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees
2. To assemble the lasagna, spoon a small amount of the ragu on the very bottom of the baking dish. Top with an even layer of lasagna pasta sheets (I used 3 across over lapping slightly)
3. Add a few spoonful’s of ragu so the pasta is completely covered followed by 2 ladles of white sauce.
4. Repeat the layers of pasta, ragu, and white sauce until everything is used up making sure to keep enough of the white sauce for the very top layer.
5. Cover the top layer of the lasagna with white sauce and mozzarella and bake in the oven for 45 minutes or until bubbling and golden brown.
6. Let it cool 5-10 minute before serving.

~Mikaila

*I like the complexity the bacon adds but it can be omitted.