Episode 019 Lasagna Skillet

Intro: Welcome to Let’s Make Dinner, your audio library of amazing dinner recipes you can get on the table any night of the week. I’m your host, Susie Weinrich. 

Susie Weinrich: All right, everybody. I am super excited to share this recipe with you today. It is probably one of the most requested recipes from my family, and I’m talking to my kids, which is saying something because I have very picky eaters here at my house.

When I ask the question, okay, what do you want for dinner? Like, what sounds good? What can I make this week that I know you’ll eat? The number one request is the Lasagna Skillet. Traditional lasagna takes a million hours to make, and I have a killer recipe for a traditional Lasagna on Mom’s Dinner that I’ll link for you, but this is Lasagna Skillet. So you may have also heard of it called Easy Lasagna or Lazy Lasagna because it is ready in about 30 minutes. It has really simple ingredients. It’s all made in one pan, right on your stovetop. 

Tips and Tricks: All right, a couple of tips on a few of the ingredients. Number one, this recipe only calls for half a pound of ground beef. So if you have another recipe that says called for one and a half pounds of ground beef, like burgers or something, and you have a half pound left, this is a perfect recipe to use up that half pound of ground beef.

Second, I recommend using ground beef that is a little less fatty so we’re not talking in 80/20 here, you’re going to want something more like an 85/15 or a 90/10 or a 93/7, something with a little less fat so you don’t end up with a really greasy dish. 

The next ingredient I want to talk about is the lasagna noodle. I have tried this recipe with both traditional lasagna noodles and with oven-ready lasagna noodles, and both work just fine. So whatever you have in your cabinet will work. 

Another ingredient that I hope doesn’t turn you off, but this recipe calls for cottage cheese, and I know traditional lasagna has ricotta cheese in it. However, I did grow up eating lasagna with cottage cheese in it, and America’s Test Kitchen actually recommends cottage cheese for your lasagna because it doesn’t tend to break down or become gritty and stays really nice and creamy when it’s baked. So give it a try. If not, you can sub the ricotta cheese, if you’re like, I am not eating cottage cheese in my lasagna. But I promise it’s delicious.

Lasagna Skillet Recipe: All right, so let’s get on to making this recipe for a lasagna skillet. You’re going to want to start with a large skillet that has a lid. You need that lid to trap the heat in there and the steam to cook the noodles. So start with that over medium heat, and you’re going to add half a pound of ground beef and completely cook that through while you crumble the ground beef. Again, I’ve talked about this in other episodes. One of my favorite kitchen tools that I use all the time is called a meat masher, and it kind of looks like a spatula that has, I’m not even sure, does it have five or eight prongs that help you mash and crumble any ground meat really well. So I will link that product in the show notes for you. 

Crumble up and cook your ground beef through. Then if you have any excess grease in the pan, go ahead and drain that off before you move on. Then you’re going to stir in half a cup of diced either yellow or white onions, and two fresh garlic cloves that have been chopped. Saute that around for just about another five minutes until everything is cooked and softened.

Next, you’re going to stir in two cups of your favorite marinara sauce. We love RAOs, either marinara or tomato basil. They’re both absolutely delicious. Add one and a half cups of water. Then raise the heat to medium-high to bring that to a nice hard simmer or a boil. Once that is bubbling, you will turn the heat to low. You’ll need about eight dry lasagna noodles that have been broken up into pieces and we’re talking like Mmm, anywhere from a two-inch to three-inch piece each. It doesn’t have to be fancy. I mean, they can be shards of lasagna, or noodles, it doesn’t matter. Again, this is just lazy lasagna. What you’re going to do is nestle all of those broken lasagna noodles down into the liquid and make sure that everything is kind of covered or coated, or at least touching the liquid. You’ll pop the lid on and simmer that for about 10 minutes. Then take the lid off and kind of zhuge the pan around and see if any of the lasagna noodles are sticking to the bottom of the pan. If the pan is looking a little dry, like the noodles have soaked up a lot of that water and liquid, you can add another half cup of water at this point.

Now you will take one cup of cottage cheese and just dollop it right into the pan and then kind of stir it in a little bit. Then sprinkle the top with about four ounces of shredded mozzarella cheese. My tip here is to use freshly shredded mozzarella cheese, and that will be half of an eight-ounce block of cheese.

You’re going to cover the pan again and let it simmer for an additional 10 to 12 minutes until the noodles are all cooked through. Remove it from the heat and let it sit uncovered for about five to 10 minutes just to let it cool. And your dinner’s ready. That is your lazy lasagna. I think a traditional lasagna would take you at least two hours to make. So here we’ve got 30 minutes. You’ve got delicious, I mean, really, really delicious, even my kids love this, lazy lasagna. 

When you’re serving this, to keep it nice and easy, I recommend just using a begged Caesar salad that you bought at the grocery store, and if you want to bulk it up a little bit more, you can even serve some garlic bread right on the side.

As always, I will link all of the recipes I talk about. About in this episode, right in the show notes so you can find it when you are ready to make Skillet Lasagna for dinner. 

If you’re enjoying these episodes of Let’s Make Dinner, I would really love to have you subscribe or follow in your preferred podcast player that will just make it easier for you to find all of our future episodes right in your podcast beat. 

Outro: Until next time, I hope this episode of Let’s Make Dinner makes your dinner time a little easier.