Kid-Approved Quick & Easy Lasagna

So here I am, 36 weeks pregnant, looking for quick and easy ways to feed my family and be able to freeze a little for when our little man arrives. Well, who doesn't love lasagna?

I generally make my lasagna with a bunch of veggies hidden in it like zucchini, broccoli and mushrooms but decided that, since I would be freezing a portion of this, I better omit them this time. I know for a fact that zucchini is mostly water so I can only imagine that defrosting it would make the leftovers more watery than I would like.

Talk about a kid approved meal! My two gobbled this version of lasagna up with NO hesitation!

Kid-Approved Quick & Easy Lasagna

Ingredients:
2 cans Tomato auce- I use Hunts Garlic and Traditional
1 bag shredded Mozzarella Cheese
1 half bag Italian mix shredded Cheese
1 16oz. container Ricotta Cheese
1 Egg
1 Box Lasagna Noodles (Cooked al dente)
Parmesan Cheese to taste
Garlic Salt to taste
Italian Seasonings to taste
1 pound ground Sirloin (or hamburger, whatever you prefer)
Worcestershire Sauce
1 med onion, diced

Prep Time - 30 minutes
Cook Time  - 1 hour 15 minutes. , remove foil, cook an additional 15 minutes @ 375

Start by boiling water and adding in the lasagna noodles. While these are cooking, add your Sirloin (or hamburger meat) to a pan along with diced onions, seasonings to taste and a few dashes of Worcestershire sauce.

(I don't know if it is just me being pregnant or what, but I add Worcestershire to any meat I cook. It is a weakness of mine!)

So once the noodles are cooked to al dente, remove them and add them to a pot of cold water so they don't get sticky!

Once the meat is browned, add in a can of tomato sauce. In a separate bowl, mix together the ricotta, bag of Italian cheese and egg. Set aside.

Here is where the art begins;

In a glass dish,pour half of the second can of sauce to cover the bottom. This will keep the noodles from sticking (helpful hint, I learned the hard way)

Start your layering!! Noodles, Meat sauce, cheese mixture. Repeat.

On the Next layer, after all the items have been layered once, add a handful of Mozzarella Cheese to every other layer. I can usually get 4-5 layers with all the ingredients.

Once I have used up everything and put my last layer of noodles, I add the remainder of the can of sauce to the top, then the remainder of the Mozzarella Cheese.

Cover loosely with tin foil and bake for 1 hour at 375 degrees. At this point you should be able to stick a knife through the noodles. If so, remove the tin foil from the pan and let the cheese brown up for an additional 15 more minutes.

Once removed from the oven, let it cool down for a few minutes (boiling cheese and hungry mama = burnt tongue)

This pairs perfectly against some garlic bread and a nice salad.

My kids ate this up and loved every bite! This size recipe fed my family of 4 (and if we're honest I may be eating more for 2, lol) and had PLENTY to freeze half the pan AND have leftovers for lunch the next day.

If you want to freeze this, make sure that the portion you are freezing has cooled down completely before sticking in the freezer! If it is still hot, it will get frostbite on it. and that is not as tasty the second time around!

Alternatively, you can prepare a pan of this up to the point where you'd cook it, seal it and freeze to be cooked later.

Hope your family enjoys this recipe as much as mine did!!