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Venison Lasagna
Baseline quantities are for a standard 3qt lasagna pan (9″ x 13″). Adjust accordingly if using a larger pan, such as a 5 quart (11″x15″), or for multiple batches.
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| 3quart (pan) |
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- 1batch Equalizer Pasta Sauce — Click here for the recipe.
- 1lb Lasagna noodles — Fresh is fantastic if you can find or make it. Some folks swear by “ready to bake” noodles. I’m not a fan. If you use them, be sure your sauce is more liquidy than normal – they need to absorb some liquid.
- 15oz ricotta cheese — typically comes in 15oz cartons. Simple to make at home (google it)
- 2Tbsp chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
- 1 egg
- 12oz sliced mozzarella
- 3/4cup Dried parmesan
- Mix the ricotta, egg and parsley together and stage in the fridge.
- Boil noodles about 5 minutes. Use plenty of salt. Don’t cook beyond al dente. Drain and cool, laid out flat on lightly oiled sheets of parchment paper.
- lightly oil lasagna pan and smear a little meat sauce on the bottom. Not much – just enough to keep the noodles from sticking to the bottom.
- Unless you’re a pro, consider dividing your ingredients up into the appropriate amounts first. See the note below the instructions.
- — Add a layer of noodles Gently push them down a little bit to reduce “voids” in the lower layers – don’t get too crazy with this step though – you don’t want to moosh the goodies up between the noodles. A little overlap is a good idea.
- — Spread Meat Sauce
- — Ricotta/Egg mix (except final layer). I use a fork and a large spoon to “flick” it in smallish lumps around the pan.
- — Slices of Mozzarella
- — Sprinkle dried or grated parmesan
- The final (top) layer is just noodles and meat sauce.
- Sprinkle the top liberally with dried parmesan.
- Cover with foil and bake @ 375 for 25 minutes. Spray foil with pam first.
- Remove foil and cook another 25 minutes or until nicely browned (if any pasta is exposed, try to correct that first – it will get crunchy.)
- Let stand at least 15 minutes, slice and serve!
Hints for lasagna noobs: It’s frustrating to get to the top layer and find you have too much or too little “stuff” left.. You can’t really go back and start over.
Once you’ve made a few lasagnas you’ll get a feel for it, In the meantime you could presume you will have 3 noodle layers for a normal (3qt) pan, and 4 layers for a large (5 qt) pan.
Keep your layers even by dividing up your meat sauce, ricotta mix, and shredded cheese mix up into equal portions in advance. Remember that you will not use the shredded cheese or ricotta on the top layer, so there will be one less portion of those than there will be of the meat sauce.
So for a 3-layer lasagna, after first spreading a little meat sauce on the bottom of your pan, divide your meat sauce into thirds, and your ricotta/egg and shredded cheese mix into halves. Top to bottom, here’s how it should end up:
- Liberal dose of dried parmesan
- 1/3rd meat sauce
- layer of noodle
- a little parmesan
- 1/2 ricotta mix
- 1/2 shredded cheese mix
- 1/3rd meat sauce
- layer of noodle
- a little parmesan
- 1/2 ricotta mix
- 1/2 shredded cheese mix
- 1/3rd meat sauce
- layer of noodle
- a thin smear of meat sauce on the bottom of the pan
For four layers you’ll divide the meat sauce into 1/4, and the cheeses into 1/3.
IMPORTANT: Boiled pasta is already saturated and will absorb little liquid, so it works fine with a thick meat sauce. Fresh or “ready to bake” pastas will absorb some liquid, so use sauce that is a bit more liquidy. Nor pourable or sloppy, mind you, just a bit looser than you want it to be after cooking. Water works, but venison, beef stock or some dry red wine is better.
Tip: Grind your own Parmigiano-Reggiano in roughly 1″ squares through a food processor – no more than 1# at a time. Way WAY better than dried parm.