Giada De Laurentiis' Secret For Whipping Up Lasagna In Just 30 Minutes
Chances are you've never thought of lasagna as a weeknight meal. With all the components like pasta, béchamel, and meat sauce, as well as the layering and baking, it's more of a special occasion, dinner party-type recipe, right?
Not if you ask Giada De Laurentiis. The Italian-American chef and Food Network star has devised a version that can be put together in as little as 30 minutes, and will be ready to eat within an hour once you've baked it. And if you've got a large skillet or Dutch oven, you can minimize your dishes and prepare it all in one pan on the stove. Here's the short version: Grab that big skillet, and quickly whip up your red sauce in there. When it's ready, you'll remove most of it, leaving just enough for one layer of lasagna in the base. Put a pasta layer on top of that, and then a layer of mixed-up ricotta and parmesan (you can throw in spinach if you're looking to make things healthier). Then, keep on layering the sauce, pasta, and ricotta, just like a regular lasagna, and put that puppy in the oven for about 30 minutes –– you might even get away with a shorter baking time if the noodles are pre-cooked or cook fast.
Breaking down the short cuts
Giada De Laurentiis' lightning-fast lasagna leans on a couple of time-saving tricks. One is the use of an oven-safe pot or pan like a skillet or Dutch oven: This way, you can cook the meat sauce in this pan on the stove, and then immediately recycle it as your baking dish. This is in contrast to your typical lasagna, which would use a separate baking dish (maybe a glass one) for the oven. Of course, you might end up with a round lasagna instead of a rectangular one, but that's life in the fast lane.
The second big time-saver is to use fast-cooking lasagna sheets in the recipe. Nowadays, a lot of lasagna sheets don't actually need to be boiled before you assemble the dish, since there's enough liquid in the dish that they'll cook in the oven. How long this takes can vary — so, it's best to choose fresh lasagna sheets, which need little time to cook through. If those aren't available, look for "no boil" lasagna sheets in the store, or choose the brand that cooks the fastest.
What you're sacrificing
Of course, a 30-minute lasagna involves a few trade-offs. Giada De Laurentiis' version is good, although a serious Italian food purist might complain that it's not truly lasagna. They're not totally wrong: This one-pot version skips the characteristic béchamel sauce. Béchamel isn't too finicky to make –– it's just flour, butter, milk, and cheese –– but it requires an extra pot and extra time. The ricotta substitute in this fast version does a good job approximating that creaminess, but it's something to think about if you're serving it to a crowd with high expectations.
You should also bear in mind that pasta sauces tend to develop a deeper flavor the longer you simmer them –– ideally, longer than the 15-or-so minutes in this version. You can try to work around this by seasoning the sauce well (be careful not to over-salt it) but if you've got time, let it simmer as long as possible. Alternatively, consider using a quality jarred marinara sauce, which might bring the deeper flavor without taking extra time, or at least top-quality tomatoes and a super-flavorful Italian sausage, so you're not sacrificing too much flavor with the quick cooking time.