This is your classic, deli style lasagne recipe with a rich, beef mince filling and a deliciously creamy béchamel sauce. It's hearty, comforting and easy to put together, and makes for the perfect midweek meal.
It's not the speediest lasagne recipe we've got (see GH tips for our fasted recipe ever), so you'll need to set aside a couple of hours to prepare and cook the sauce, but you will be well rewarded, we promise.
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Yields:
4 serving(s)
Prep Time:
30 mins
Cook Time:
35 mins
Total Time:
1 hr 5 mins
Cal/Serv:
992
Ingredients
2Tbsp.
olive oil
1 large onion, finely chopped
1 stick celery, finely diced
1 large carrot, peeled and finely diced
2 garlic cloves, crushed
2Tbsp.
tomato puree
1tsp.
dried oregano
500g
beef mince
200ml
red wine
400g
tin chopped tomatoes
100ml
hot beef stock
For the béchamel sauce
1
garlic clove
1
fresh bay leaf
50g
butter
50g
plain flour
600ml
whole milk
about 9 sheets dried egg lasagne (enough for 3 layers of pasta)
100g
Parmesan, grated
Directions
Step 1
Gently heat the oil in a large frying pan with a lid. Fry the onion with a pinch of salt, covered, for 10min, until softened, stirring halfway through. Increase heat slightly; add celery and carrot and cook, covered, for 10min until softened. Add garlic, tomato purée and oregano; cook for 1min.
Step 2
Season mince, break up and add to the pan, stirring until evenly browned.
Step 3
Add the wine, increase heat and reduce by half. Pour in chopped tomatoes. Rinse tin out with hot beef stock and add to the pan. Reduce heat and simmer, covered, for 1hr, stirring occasionally. Remove the lid for a final 30min to reduce the sauce.
Step 4
Heat oven to 180°C (160°C fan) mark 4. Lightly bruise garlic and bay leaf.
Step 5
For the béchamel, melt the butter in a large, non-stick pan, and then add flour, stirring with a wooden spoon to make a smooth, thick paste. Cook, stirring, for 2min. Remove from heat and gradually whisk in milk until smooth. Add garlic and bay leaf. Return to heat, bring to boil and simmer,
stirring, for about 5min until sauce has thickened and coats the back of the spoon. Off the heat, remove garlic and bay leaf and set aside.
Step 6
In a large pan of salted, boiling water, cook pasta for 1min in batches to avoid sticking. Set aside to dry on an oiled plate.
Step 7
Spread a third of the meat over the base of a 1.6 litre baking dish about 25.5 x 25.5cm. Spoon over a quarter of the béchamel, sprinkle with 2tbsp Parmesan and place 3 sheets of pasta over in a single layer. Repeat twice. Top with the rest of the béchamel, then sprinkle over remaining cheese. Season with finely ground black pepper. Bake for 35min, until golden.
Often cooked with too much sauce, lasagne should be a sliceable pasta bake. We've used blanched dried pasta but you can use fresh egg pasta - just don't precook it.
For sliceable squares of lasagne, remove from oven and cool for 20min. Any residual moisture will soak into the pasta.
If you're looking for a cheat's lasagne, one that uses a pre made sauce, we have you covered. In fact we have a whole host of other lasagne recipes from a Mexican-style lasagne to a vegetarian version. But if it's the speediest lasagne recipe you're after, it's this one-pot lasagne, ready in 30mins start to finish
Good Housekeeping UK
Per Serving:
Calories: 992
Fibre: 6 g
Total carbs: 71 g
Sugars: 17 g
Total fat: 51 g
Saturated fat: 25 g
Protein: 50 g
From speedy cheat’s versions to a classic low and slow, these are our best ever comforting lasagne recipes
An experienced and highly skilled team of food writers, stylists and digital content producers, the Good Housekeeping Cookery Team is a close-knit squad of food obsessives. Cookery Editor Emma Franklin is our resident chilli obsessive and barbecue expert, who spends an inordinate amount of time on holidays poking round the local supermarkets seeking out new and exciting foods. Senior Cookery Writer Alice Shields is a former pastry chef and baking fanatic who loves making bread and would have peanut butter with everything if she could. Her favourite carb is pasta, and our vibrant green spaghetti is her weeknight go-to. Lover of all things savoury, Senior Cookery Writer Grace Evans can be found eating crispy corn and nocellara olives at every opportunity, and will take the cheeseboard over dessert any time (though she cannot resist a slice of tres leches cake). With a wealth of professional kitchen know-how, culinary training and years of experience between them, they are all dedicated to ensuring every Good Housekeeping recipe is the best it can be, so you can trust they’ll work (and if they don’t – we’ll have the answer for why*) every time (*90% of the time the answer is: “buy an separate oven thermometer”!).
