Thursday, September 17, 2009

Meat Lasagna - Cooking Tips

By Mike Smith

Making a lasagna can be a tough and intimidating task, but with the right lasagna cooking tips, you can make it delicious. I've made terrible lasagnas in the past, but nowadays, I can make a pretty good lasagna with just a couple tips.

In my meat sauce, I try to combine a couple types of meat. Try beef, pork and turkey for the best flavor. The lasagna noodles can be dried, fresh, or the no boil variety. I prefer the no boil type because it tastes the best with a lasagna and won't be soggy after the lasagna is baked.

This step involves buying the freshest ingredients you can find. Especially, with cheeses. With Parmesan cheese, I prefer the freshly grated type, for obvious reasons. With mozzarella cheese, you have to find the best and the freshest type of mozzarella. Just buy the best cheese and your lasagna will taste amazing. If you settle for cheap cheese, your lasagna will be bland.

Whatever you do, do not add liquid to your sauce. You want your sauce to be thick, especially if you add veggies to your sauce. Veggies will only add more water to your lasagna and then you won't be able to cut out nice squares that stay together.

Cover your lasagna with aluminum foil while it bakes. If not, it will burn on top. Leave it covered for most of the baking time, only uncovering it during the last 15-20 minutes of baking.

Spray your baking dish AND put a little sauce on the bottom so the noodles won't stick or get tough.

Be sure to drain the meat VERY well to keep lasagna from being runny. This is very important. You can even use a paper towel to drain the meat.

Use eggs for binder. Try three eggs with meat, spaghetti sauce, cream cheese, cottage or ricotta cheese, mozzarella, and noodles.

There are hundreds of lasagna tips on the internet, but these are the most important lasagna tips, I believe. I tried to only include the best and most effective tips for your lasagna. You can also make vegetarian lasagna, but I absolutely love Meat Lasagna and that's all I usually make. Good luck with your lasagna!

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