Lasagna Sauce - General Cooking Principles
Each of us associates lasagna with Italian cuisine, Provencal herbs and a delicate Bechamel sauce. Few people will refuse an appetizing piece of baked dough with filling under a crispy baked crust. The dough for cooking lasagna can be used purchased, or cook yourself, but the sauce for lasagna should be homemade.
Preparing it is not so difficult, and experimenting with aromatic herbs and seasonings, every time you can get a delicious dinner with an interesting and original taste. Moreover, there are a lot of recipes for cooking lasagna sauces, you can pick them up to the tastes of all family members.
The most difficult process in the preparation of lasagna is the preparation of a stiff dough, which is then necessary to roll out carefully and very finely. However, the purchased plates are almost the same as those that can be cooked in your kitchen. After all, the composition of the ingredients is the same as that of homemade dough.
Lasagna sauces can be prepared using the ingredients that are on hand - this is meat of different varieties, and mushrooms, and fresh or frozen mixed vegetables. Spices that make the sauce more expressive help to achieve the taste.
For example, Italian chefs are sure that Bolognese sauce needs to be cooked for at least 4-5 hours, but Béchamel is cooked much faster, but it will take a little experience. Italian cuisine can not be spoiled by the addition of a small amount of wine or fresh tomatoes, and fragrant herbs are welcome in sauces and other dishes.
It is simply impossible to spoil lasagna with the amount of stuffing or sauce, the output will still make a very tasty and juicy dish. To enhance the taste of meat lasagna, or to emphasize the freshness of vegetables, you can add a little bacon to the sauce, and the taste of the dish changes immediately.
Lasagna Sauce - Preparing Food and Cookware
Lasagne is cooked in the oven, baking the dish until golden brown, but if there is a slow cooker, you can cook it there, just select the special "Baking" mode.
The lasagna baking mold in the oven should be ceramic or non-stick coated with high sides. The heavier the shape, the better during cooking the hot heat will be distributed over it, reducing the cooking time. High sides are necessary to ensure that the lasagna sauce does not flow out over the edges as the volume increases. After all, the dough is soaked with sauce and juice from the filling and will begin to increase in volume, so you should not fill the form to the brim.
Sauces for cooking lasagna are divided into two types: the first is thick with a meat or vegetable component, and the second is more liquid, with the addition of cream and cheese or tomatoes, which make the dish juicy. All these three sauces can be combined, but, as a rule, tomatoes are added to the meat sauce to reduce the cooking time. Tomato sauce with vegetables is prepared for vegetarian lasagna.
Products must be fresh, as well as spices with aromatic herbs. To make the dish aromatic and crispy, you need cheese, ideally - it is hard Parmesan, but you can use other varieties of cheese with a neutral or pronounced taste.
It is recommended to add vegetables and root vegetables to the meat stuffing - onions and garlic, carrots, fresh celery stalks, zucchini and zucchini, and even eggplants. You can add any vegetables - for example, a little pumpkin, bell pepper and cauliflower, which blends perfectly with the Béchamel sauce.
Lasagna Sauce Recipes
Recipe 1: Béchamel Lasagna Sauce
This recipe is suitable for cooking classic lasagna with minced meat and cheese crust.
Ingredients Required:
- Flour - 50 gr.
- Mixed minced - 500 gr.
- Celery - 1 pc.
- Garlic - 1 clove
- Salted or smoked bacon - 100 gr.
- Onion - 1 pc.
- Parmesan - 100 gr.
- Carrots - 1 pc.
- Milk - 700 ml.
- Butter - 40 gr.
- Red wine - 60 ml.
- Pinch of ground nutmeg
- Coarse salt, a little pepper
- Olive oil - 2 tablespoons
- A bunch of fresh greens
Cooking method:
Start cooking best with meat sauce. To do this, onions and garlic must be cleaned, very finely chopped and fry in a deep frying pan until golden brown. Now you need to add ground beef to root vegetables. To keep the stuffing from remaining lumpy, at this stage of cooking it is recommended to pour in 5 ml of water and mix the mass well.
Chop carrots or use frozen mixture, cut into small cubes. Celery stalk chopped. Add vegetables to the meat and pour in the wine.
Salt the meat sauce well, season it with spices and seasonings, reduce the heat and let it stew until fully cooked. The longer the sauce is cooked, the tastier the lasagna turn out. If necessary, you can add water, broth or tomato juice.
Bechamel sauce is made from melted butter with flour and milk. You need to mix all the ingredients and sweat on the fire. Flour can be pre-fry in a dry frying pan until golden brown and nutty flavor. Hold the mass on the stove for two minutes and pour in the milk.
The lasagna sauce must be constantly stirred so that it does not burn, and no lumps remain in the sauce. If, however, the flour does not dissolve, the sauce can be removed from the heat, strain through a sieve and return to the fire, salt well and add spices (nutmeg with black pepper), and reduce to a thick consistency.
During the “gathering” of the dish, the meat layer of the filling is covered with Bechamel sauce and sprinkled with grated cheese mixed with greens.
Recipe 2: Mushroom Lasagna Sauce
This lasagna can be prepared not only in the season of abundance of forest mushrooms, but also using frozen or canned mushrooms, fresh champignons in the winter season. To enhance the taste, you can add some dried white mushrooms to the filling.
Ingredients Required:
- Garlic - 4 cloves
- Fresh chanterelles - 500 gr.
- White mushrooms dry - 25 gr.
- Tomatoes - 3 pcs.
- Some vegetable oil
- White wine - 50 ml.
- Onion - 1 pc.
- Oregano - 1 pinch
- Some salt and black pepper
Cooking method:
Peel the garlic, crush it with the flat side of the knife, not chopping. Heat a pan with vegetable oil and add garlic cloves. As soon as they become bloody, remove the garlic from the oil. This way of roasting flavors the butter, and gives the mushrooms a spicy flavor.
Fry the onion and garlic in hot oil over low heat.
Wash and cut the mushrooms, add to the onions and season with spices and salt. Until the mushrooms have released the liquid, they absorb seasonings and fragrant spices very well.
Fry the mushrooms until golden brown and pour in the white wine, stew the mushrooms for 10 minutes over low heat.
Once the filling has cooled, the lasagna can be collected by repeating the layers of dough with mushrooms and bechamel sauce. Season the top layer of dough with plenty of cheese.
Recipe 3: Spicy Lasagna Sauce
A lover of spicy dishes will love the spicy sauce with seasonings and lots of fresh herbs, sweet and sour taste.
Ingredients Required:
- Leek - 1 pc.
- Tomatoes - 1 kg.
- Celery - 2 pcs.
- Garlic - 2 cloves
- Some olive oil for frying
- Bulgarian pepper - 4 pcs.
- Big bunch of greens
- Salt, sugar and freshly ground pepper
- Red wine - 50 ml.
Cooking method:
Rinse tomatoes, peppers, onions and celery, cut, remove from stalks and seeds and beat with an immersion blender until a homogeneous mass, which must be drained through a sieve. To remove the skin and remaining seeds.
Pour mass into a saucepan and reduce by a third over low heat to thicken the sauce.
Grind the garlic in a mortar with the addition of coarse salt and freshly ground coarse pepper.
As soon as the sauce thickens, pour wine into it, add sugar and crushed garlic.
Fresh greens very finely chop with a sharp knife, add to the sauce and turn off the heat.
Using this sauce for lasagna, you can prepare both the traditional version of the dish and vegetable lasagna with seasonal vegetables.
Recipe 4: Vegetable Lasagna Sauce
Quickly prepare a lasagna sauce with vegetables by using a frozen mixture of vegetables, for example, Scandinavian or country-style. The American or Mexican mix will work well, but they contain corn, which not everyone likes. An excellent option for cooking vegetable lasagna will be a mixture for vegetable stews.
Ingredients Required:
- Vegetable Stew Packaging
- Tomatoes - 4 pcs.
- A small piece of butter
- Salt and pepper
- Some fresh greens
Cooking method:
Wash tomatoes, cut into slices and remove the core. Beat the meaty part with a blender.
In a hot frying pan, fry frozen vegetables, pour them with tomato sauce, season with spices and salt, and stew until the sauce thickens.
At the end of cooking, add a little chopped greens, spices and even a clove of crushed garlic to enhance the taste.
Cooking vegetable lasagna will require more cheese and bechamel sauce.
Recipe 5: Seafood Lasagna Sauce
Lasagne can be prepared not only with meat filling, but also use the various gifts of nature, having prepared a delicious sauce for lasagna. Tasty and very healthy dish quickly prepared.
Ingredients Required:
- Cancer necks - 150 gr.
- Leek - 1 pc.
- Canned tomatoes - 1 can (or 5 fresh)
- Sweet pepper - 1 pc.
- Boiled shrimp - 300 gr.
- Garlic - 2 cloves
- Provencal herbs - 2 pinches
- Oil for frying
- Pepper, salt, spices and seasonings, dry herbs
Cooking method:
Chop the onion and garlic with a very finely sharp knife and fry in hot oil.
As soon as the vegetables become transparent and begin to roast, add shrimps and crayfish to them.
Bulgarian pepper cut into small cubes and add to seafood.
Then add canned tomatoes, salt, spices and seasonings and half greens.
Extinguish the sauce so that the vegetables are soft, and the shrimps are ready and finally add the remaining greens.
Collecting lasagna with this sauce, you should not sandwich the layers with grated cheese, it will be enough to just sprinkle the top layer of dough for a golden crust.
Lasagna Sauce - Secrets and Tips from the Best Culinary
As noted above, for the preparation of lasagna, two sauces are used: the main one filled with meat or vegetables, and the Béchamel lasagne sauce, to link the layers of dough and the filling to each other. For a vegetable dish, you need more sauce and cheese to emphasize the taste of the dish, and in some types you should not add cheese to the stuffing.
In order to prepare all the lumps of flour when cooking the Beshamel sauce, it is recommended to use a wooden spatula or a whisk.
Lemon juice or wine is not added to Bechamel sauce, otherwise milk or cream will “roll up”. It will be enough just salt, pepper and, of course, nutmeg.
Calculate the amount of flour and butter can be based on the rule that 100 grams. butter requires 1 spoonful of flour.
