And now its time for the last (and best) of our white lasagnes. White Lasagne with Italian Sausage and Peas!
As I mentioned in the introduction last week, this particular version was inspired by a dish I always get when I visit Little Dom’s in Los Feliz. It seemed like it would translate well to the lasagne format and boy was I right!
The set up and construction is largely the exact same as the White Lasagne with Spinach and Ricotta from the last post, except that we are replacing the spinach with the peas and have added another ingredient in the form of the italian sausage.
So to prepare, cook up a batch of béchamel sauce following the recipe here.
Then cook the italian sausage and set aside until its time to construct the lasagne.
In a bowl combine the ricotta cheese, egg, seasoning, and a bag of frozen peas.
Keep your grated cheese at the ready.
Now its time to construct the lasagne. Like last time, start with a scoop of béchamel in the bottom of the pan, followed by a layer of lasagne noodles. Then add another scoop of béchamel, a layer of ricotta/peas spread evenly to cover, a layer of italian sausage and then a layer of shredded cheese. Repeat layers of noodles, béchamel, ricotta/peas, sausage and cheese until you run out of space or ingredients, whichever comes first.
Note: the amount of cheese in the animated gif above is misleading. As I mentioned in the last post I forgot to scale the amount of cheese for 2 lasagnes so I ran out of my cheese while making this one. I left most for the top layer, and ended up using a small amount of parmesan which was the only shredded cheese I happened to have laying around. So adjust your cheese amount according to your preferences. It honestly didn’t need more, though I would totally have added it if i had it. Just call it bad planning.
Once you have it constructed you can wait, or bake it straight away.. and you will end up with something gorgeous like this:
Post Mortem:
This one was not nearly as dry seeming as the other one. I think thats due to the addition of the sausage. I would still use an entire batch of béchamel sauce and more cheese than shown above.
As it stood though this was amazing! It was definitely my favorite and I am so going to be making this over and over again.
- 1 batch béchamel sauce
- 1-2 boxes of no boil lasagne noodles
- 16oz package of mild or sweet italian sausage
- 1 16oz container ricotta cheese
- 1 egg
- 16oz of shredded cheese of your choosing. (you can use more or less as you like)
- 1 small bag of frozen peas. (I'm not certain I used the whole bag, I added what seemed appropriate)
- salt and pepper
- Prepare a batch of béchamel sauce
- Preheat oven to 350 deg F.
- In a skillet, cook the italian sausage then set aside.
- In a bowl combine the ricotta cheese, egg, frozen peas, salt, pepper and a portion of the grated cheese and mix together well.
- In a lasagne pan, add a scoop of béchamel sauce.
- Add a layer of lasagne noodles to cover.
- Add another layer of béchamel sauce.
- Add a layer of the ricotta/pea mixture and spread to cover.
- Add a layer of italian sausage.
- Sprinkle on a layer of shredded cheese.
- Add another layer of lasagne noodles to cover.
- Repeat the steps adding layers of noodles, béchamel, ricotta/spinach, sausage and shredded cheese until you run out of space in the pan or ingredients.
- Tent the pan loosely with aluminum foil (if you cover too tightly cheese will likely stick to the foil)
- Bake for about 40 min.
- Remove the foil and bake for another 20-30 min or so until the top is lightly browned and bubbly.
- Let cool for 10 min before serving.
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