1.) Sauce, with as little meat as possible to coat the bottom of the pan.
2.) Noodles (I'm partial to the obviously hated wavy ones, cooked just short of al dente)
3.) Globs of whole milk ricotta, spread over the noodles as best as possible
4.) Meat sauce (made with half ground beef, half spicy italian sausage)
5.) Diced eggs
6.) Whole milk mozzarella, generous amounts
7.) Sprinkle of parmesan
8.) Repeat with 3 more layers following the same plan.
9.) Top layer does not contain egg or ricotta, but has generous amounts of mozzarella
10.) Sprinkle generously with parmesan
11.) Bake until the cheese is brown and the corners are crunchy (my favorite part.)

My lasagna probably weighs 6lbs.

Ooh, I like the idea of spicy sausage. A bit of 'nduja in the ragu would go down a treat.

I'm curious about the diced eggs. Did this come from a recipe or something you added on your own and liked it?

Turns out that there's a raging debate about whether or not to "egg" your lasagna.

http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtop...f=23&t=1131878

Never head of eggs in a lasagne. Though I suppose it might work. Maybe more with sausage than hamburg though. How much egg? Like, a layer, or just enough to add a little texture.

Then again I am likely to not make it. Had to through out half a dozen eggs I failed to boil correctly this evening.

I use an egg mixed in with the ricotta.

Right. But this seems to be chopped cooked eggs not raw mixed with the cheese.

Yuck!

It's how my Grandma made it, so just following family tradition. All my friends love it.

A hearty sprinkle of it per layer. I don't add a ton of it, but use just over half a dozen for the whole pan.

The spicy sausage is key to me!

I've had too many lasagnas, including too many that I made myself, that were "a leaky pink mess," so I definitely favor a sturdy, stand-up lasagna. However, I think I went a bit too far in that direction with my latest batch (which had five pasta layers); it was a bit dry, and I wish I'd used more sauce. Better luck next time, I hope.

I usually only go three or four. If you go above that, you end up eating it sideways anyways, so what is the point?

My mother's recipe calls for the same, two in fact.

Lasagna is a major point of dissension between my wife and I. I prefer layers of pasta/ragu/mornay sauce, but her family have always added cottage cheese. The result is rather strange, but not entirely unpleasant. I believe in her families case it comes from the Welsh valleys where Italian immigrants (mostly running the local ice cream parlors from what I understand) couldn't get mozzarella to add to their lasagna and made do with the closest local cheese they could find. Their neighbours thought that was how authentic lasagna was supposed to be made.

There is a separate story to be told about the time her mother accidentally bought cottage cheese with pineapple chunks in ti and decided to go ahead with the lasagna anyway!

It takes about 5 easily-obtainable ingredients and about an hour to make fresh mozzarella at home. :eek:

I would think that cottage cheese is closest to ricotta. Well, to be honest, cottage cheese very well could be ricotta depending on how authentic you are talking about the ricotta. Cottage cheese in the US really is the same recipe, only they leave the curds larger and add cream at the end. But cottage cheese varies from country to country.

And if you think Mozzarella is easy, you can do homemade ricotta with just milk and vinegar or lemon juice. Tastes incredible, but super high in lactose if you are lactose intolerant.

I'm from the UK (not the Welsh valleys to be fair) and I've never heard of cottage cheese in lasagne before this thread. It's certainly not in any recipes I see here.

They are a strange lot in Wales though, so who knows :D