Skillet Lasagna

Finally, I’m back to posting up recipes, and boy, do I ever have some catching up to do. So, where do I decide to start? With what we had for dinner tonight. This is because I’m feeling ridiculously overwhelmed at the stack of recipes I’ve got in a pile, in a bag, in our office, just waiting to be added.

Shudder.

Any way, on to this fantastic skillet lasagna. The pros: it cooks in ONE FRYING PAN. That’s right, one pan. Now, this is fantastic for a number of reasons, but my personal favorite is the lack of clean up. Yeah, that’s a really good one.

Start by mixing together the meat, Italian seasoning, garlic powder, onion powder, salt, pepper, Worcestershire sauce and hot sauce.

Get your diced tomatoes and water together in a measuring cup (note the ragu home-made tomato sauce, at least, that’s what I’ll tell people, shush)

Now, pull out the biggest skillet in your arsenal. Seriously, you need a LARGE skillet here. Or you could just half the recipe if it’s for less people, something I seem unable to do. Like tonight, I cooked the full recipe for Bo, Oliver and I to eat. And Oliver eats less than a bird, seriously, we think he’s shrinking. I froze half of it and am just hoping for the best, I’ll let you know. Any way, back to the skillet. Once it’s nice and hot, add in the onion and cook it until softened and just starting to brown.

Once the onions are ready, add the garlic and red pepper flakes, cooking until fragrant. Then add your meat and cook until brown. But wait. What’s that? Why is this a photo of browned meat with raw garlic and red pepper flakes on top, with a few pieces of lasagna noodles (we’ll get to those soon). Well, it’s because I forgot about the garlic and red pepper flakes. I had browned the meat and already had half of the lasagna noodles broken on top when I saw the bottle of red pepper flakes beside the cook top. So, professional that I am, I picked the noodles out until I’d gotten tired of that, threw the garlic and pepper flakes in, took a picture and continued on.

It was also about this time that I lost my sous chef. I gave him a “surprise” for being such a good helper, it was a cherry flavored Tootsie Pop. Lesson learned. However, on the upside, he returned it to me with only the tootsie remaining, and he said it took him 437 licks. Now, only one secret left to uncover, watch out caramilk!

Ok, now it’s time to break all those noodles into pieces and lay them on top of the meat, but don’t mix it up. First up, a before picture (mainly because it’s just so pretty looking). This was half a box of noodles, which is nice and convenient. Be sure that you just by the regular ones though, no need for those oven ready ones.

And now, all broken up. I’d say aim for 2″ pieces, but it is bloody impossible to break them into similar sized pieces, so just break them up however you can.

Top with the diced tomato / water mixture and the home-made ;P pasta sauce. Do your best to make sure all the noodles are covered, but still don’t stir it. Then, just cover and simmer for about 20 minutes, stirring once.

Checking back in with my helper. Yep, still busy with that sucker. My face: shocked.

After 20 minutes, once the noodles are tender, stir in some Parmesan and mozzarella cheese.

Then top with some ricotta and another dash of Parmesan and we’re good to go. You might be saying that’s a lot of cheese. I’d suggest you just move along to the next recipe, but you’ll be missing out! And this is WAY less than what goes into a regular baked lasagna.

Seriously, how can you resist this? And let me remind you, one more time, that the only dishes used (and therefore needing to be cleaned) are a 4 cup measuring cup and a skillet.

That’s it! Bo, Oliver and I all liked this one, and it was a cinch to make so I highly recommend it. I got the original recipe for this is a skillet cooking magazine put out by Cooks Illustrated by America’s Test Kitchen, then tweaked it a bit. You’ll see America’s Test Kitchen mentioned a lot. I love them. They’re my bible (because I’m lost without a recipe to start from).

Here’s the printable for you:

Skillet Lasagna

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 40 minutes

Total Time: 50 minutes

Print

Ingredients

• 1lb ground beef
• 1lb ground pork
• ½ tbsp Italian seasoning
• salt
• pepper
• ¼ tsp garlic powder
• ¼ tsp onion powder
• 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
• ½ tsp hot sauce
• 1 (28oz) can diced tomatoes
• water
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 medium onion, diced
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• ¼ tsp crushed red pepper flakes
• 13 curly-edged lasagna noodles, broken into pieces (not the oven ready ones)
• 1 can tomato sauce
• ¾ cup grated Parmesan cheese
• ¾ cup grated mozzarella cheese
• 1 cup ricotta cheese

Instructions

1. Mix together the ground beef, ground pork, Italian seasoning, garlic powder, onion powder, Worcestershire sauce, hot sauce, and salt and pepper (to taste). Set aside. Empty the canned, diced tomatoes into a 4 cup measuring cup, and top with water until you reach the 4 cup mark.
2. In a large skillet, heat oil over medium heat until simmering. Add the onion, and a generous pinch of salt, and cook until the onion softens and just begins to brown (about 5 minutes). Stir in the garlic and red pepper flakes and cook until becoming fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add in the meat mixture and cook, breaking apart, until browned (about 5 minutes)
3. Break the lasagna noodles into roughly 2" pieces and cover the meat with them, but do not stir. Pour the diced tomato mixture and the tomato sauce over the noodles, cover, and bring to a simmer. Reduce the heat to medium-low and, stirring occasionally, cook until the pasta is tender, about 20 minutes.
4. Remove the skillet from the heat and stir in ½ c Parmesan cheese, mozzarella cheese, salt and pepper to taste. Top with heaping spoonfuls of ricotta cheese and serve, sprinkling additional Parmesan cheese over is desired.