World's Best Lasagna

After making my Chicken Lasagna a few weeks ago, I decided I wanted to try a regular lasagna too. So I searched on allrecipes.com and decide I couldn't go wrong with something titled "World's Best Lasagna." I then made it my mission to find out if this high-and-mighty title was in fact true!

INGREDIENTS:

-1 lb sweet Italian sausage

-3/4 lb. lean ground beef

-1/2 cup minced onion

-2 cloves garlic, crushed

-1 (28 oz) can crushed tomatoes

-2 (6 oz) cans tomato paste

-2 (6.5 oz) cans canned tomato sauce

-1/2 cup water

-2 tbsp white sugar

-1 1/2 tsp dried basil leaves

-1/2 tsp fennel seeds

-1 tsp Italian seasoning

-1 tbsp salt

-1/4 tsp ground black pepper

-4 tbsp chopped fresh parsley

-12 lasagna noodles

-16 oz ricotta cheese

-1 egg

-1/2 tsp salt

3/4 lb mozzarella cheese, sliced

3/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

DIRECTIONS:

-In a Dutch oven, cook sausage, ground beef, onion, and garlic over medium heat until well browned. Stir in crushed tomatoes, tomato paste, tomato sauce, and water. Season with sugar, basil, fennel seeds, Italian seasoning, 1 tbsp salt, pepper, and 2 tbsp parsley. Simmer, covered, for about 1 1/2 hours, stirring occasionally.

-Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to boil. Cook lasagna noodles in boiling water for 8-10 minutes. Drain noodles, and rinse with cold water. In a mixing bowl, combine ricotta cheese with egg, remaining parsley, and 1/2 tsp salt.

-Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

-To assemble, spread 1 1/2 cups of meat sauce in the bottom of a 9x13 inch baking dish. Arrange 6 noodles lengthwise over meat sauce. Spread with one half of the ricotta cheese mixture. Top with a third of mozzarella cheese slices. Spoon 1 1/2 cups meat sauce over mozzarella, and sprinkle with 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese. Repeat layers, and top with remaining mozzarella and Parmesan cheese. Cover with foil; to prevent sticking, either spray foil with cooking spray, or make sure foil does not touch the cheese.

-Bake in preheated oven for 25 minutes. Remove foil, and bake an additional 25 minutes. Cool for 15 minutes before serving.

COMMENTS:

-All I can say is, Wow. This person was not lying. This lasagna was amazing!! Extra cheesy and the meat sauce came out soooo good.

-A few things we did differently: left out the onions. Instead of cooking meat in a Dutch oven (we don't have one), we used a deep skillet, then moved it to a really big stockpot when we had to mix it with the sauce.

-Time saver: we used the Barilla no-cook lasagna noodles, which do not require you to boil them before going in the lasagna. You just place them (hard) in the lasagna layers and they come out cooked at the end. I have no idea how this magic works but I'm sticking with it.

-This made tons of lasagna, we had leftovers for over a week. Excellent comfort food!!