Personal-Pan Lasagna

Brent has been bugging me to make a home made lasagna.  Personally, I don't like lasagna much.  I'm not sure why exactly, but it isn't a meal I would ever request.  After putting it off for weeks, I finally relented to cook lasagna after finding a fun recipe in the October issue of my Parenting magazine.  This recipe was so appealing because it is very open ended in terms of the sauces and filling you can use.

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Personal-Pan Lasagna

The genius of this lasagna recipe is that is uses ravioli in place of regular lasagna noodles-so one of you can try a spinach-and-walnut lasagna (spinach ravioli with alfredo sauce, gorgonzola, chopped spinach, and walnuts) while the other goes with the old standby (cheese ravioli with marinara and mozzarella), thereby seamlessly working a flavor upgrade into family dinner.  The amounts given will fill a 9 by 5-inch baking dish, two 4 by 6 (or 5 by 5) pans, or six 2 by 3's.

Prep time: 15 minutes

Total time: 45 minutes to an hour

Serves: 4

Fresh pasta sauces, like marinara, pesto, and alfredo (about 16 oz)

Frozen ravioli, like squash, spinach, and cheese (about 15 oz)

1/2 cup desired add-ins, like bell peppers, chopped spinach, and walnuts

2 cups shredded cheese, like mozzarella

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
2. Assemble your lasagnas in layers in the following order: sauce, ravioli, add-ins, and cheese, making sure you always start with the sauce and end with the cheese.
3. Cover them with foil and bake for 30 minutes.  Remove foil; bake for 10 to 15 minutes more, or until bubbly.

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For our lasagna we used spaghetti sauce, chicken filled ravioli, chopped spinach, chopped onions over half the pan, cottage cheese, mozzarella cheese, and cheddar cheese.

The meal was a real hit. It was way easy to make and required very little clean up. I liked it.  Brent loved it, and Liam wouldn't stop eating it.  Liam and Brent even shared the left overs the following day :)

I plan on making the lasagna again this week, but instead of spaghetti sauce, I'm going to use sun-dried tomato alfredo. 

-Anna