Lasagna Bolognese

This isn’t a quick and easy lasagna. This is a slow and divine lasagna. A memorable lasagna. And we have a Simply Recipes reader to thank for it.

Several months ago a commenter on this site, by the name of “El Cocinero Loco” (The Crazy Cook) left a detailed and delightful lasagna Bolognese recipe in the comments of one of our recipes.

The recipe given was a little incomplete; I had to fill in the blanks by referring to a few cookbooks. But it sounded so good that we just had to try it.

Yes it takes hours, and yes, it is worth it. Mr. Loco’s commentary is quite amusing, so I do encourage you to read it (just scroll down the comments on this page).

Lasagna Bolognese Recipe

Ingredients

Bolognese Sauce:

• 2 oz. Diced pancetta, finely chopped
• 1 Medium Spanish onion or yellow onion, finely chopped
• 1 Stalk celery, finely chopped
• 1 Carrot, finely chopped
• 4 Tbsp unsalted butter
• 11 oz Ground beef
• 4 oz Ground pork
• 4 oz Ground Italian sausage
• 1 freshly ground clove
• Dash of freshly ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
• 2 lb peeled and chopped tomatoes (or 1 28-oz can whole peeled tomatoes)
• 1 cup whole milk
• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt

Béchamel Sauce:

• 2 cups whole milk
• 1/4 cup unsalted butter
• 1/4 cup all-purpose unbleached flour

Lasagna:

• Enough lasagna noodles to make four layers in a 13x9-inch baking pan with the lasagna pieces overlapping each other a little bit.
• Recommended 16 sheets of De Cecco brand Italian lasagna noodles.

• 1 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

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