One of the first recipes I ever made when I was young was lasagna.  What I remem­ber most about mak­ing lasagna was it’s com­plex­ity.  Sure, I used pre-made sauce but it was that lasagna assem­bly that taught me that I could impro­vise – with spices.  I guess you could com­pare me to a mad sci­en­tist, hov­er­ing over the stove adding a pinch of this, a pinch of that and the sauce always turned out well.  How­ever, no mat­ter how you cut it, the slice of lasagna would just not look chic on a plate. 

Giada de Lau­ren­tiis has revamped the lasagna, trans­form­ing what would be a brick pan of pasta into some­thing chic and per­fect for enter­tain­ing – Lasagna Rolls. Instead of pro­sciutto, I used smoky bacon and I did use low fat milk instead of whole.  How­ever the most accom­plished thing I did was make a béchamel sauce from scratch.  I really have failed at this task in times prior but this was the first time that I was able to make it from start to fin­ish with no drama.  I don’t think that I’ll be mak­ing lasagna the old fash­ioned way any more.  

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Lasagna Rolls

Recipe adapted from Giada de Laurentiis

Ingre­di­ents

Béchamel Sauce:

• 2 table­spoons unsalted butter
• 4 tsp. all-purpose flour
• 1 1/4 cups whole milk
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1/8 tsp. pep­per, freshly ground
• Pinch of freshly ground nutmeg

Lasagna:

• 15 oz, con­tainer ricotta cheese, prefer­ably whole milk
• 10 oz. pack­age frozen chopped spinach, thawed, squeezed dry
• 1 cup plus 2 tbsp. grated Parmesan .
• 4 slices of cooked bacon, chopped
• 1 large egg, beaten
• 3/4 tsp. kosher salt
• 1/2 tsp. pep­per, freshly ground
• 1/4  – 1/2 tsp. of red pep­per (depend­ing on how spicy you like your sauce)
• 1/4 dried oregano
• 1 to 2 tbsp. olive oil
• 12 uncooked lasagna noo­dles (NOT the no-boil kind)
• 2 cups mari­nara sauce
• 1 cup shred­ded mozzarella

Direc­tions

For the Béchamel Sauce:

• In a medium saucepan, melt the but­ter over medium-low heat.
• When the but­ter is melted, add the flour and whisk con­tin­u­ously for about 2–3 minutes. 
• Whisk in the milk in a slow steady stream, mak­ing sure there are no lumps and increase the heat to medium-high.
• Con­tinue whisk­ing the sauce until it comes to a sim­mer and is thick, coat­ing the back of a spoon.  It should take about 2–3 minutes.  
• Take off the heat and whisk in the salt, pep­per and freshly ground nutmeg. 
• Set aside.

For the Lasagna Rolls:

• Pre­heat the oven to 450 degrees F.
• Bring a large pot of water to a boil.  Salt the water gen­er­ously, add the olive oil and boil the noo­dles until they are al dente.
• In a medium bowl, com­bine the ricotta, egg, drained spinach, 1 cup of the Parme­san cheese, bacon, salt and pep­per.  Set aside.
• When the noo­dles are cooked, drain and arrange the noo­dles on a sin­gle layer on a bak­ing sheet to pre­vent them from sticking.
• But­ter a 13-by-9-by-2-inch glass bak­ing dish.
• In the bot­tom of the but­tered bak­ing dish, pour the béchamel sauce and spread evenly.
• Lay out 4 lasagna noo­dles on a work sur­face, then spread about 3 table­spoons of the cheese mix­ture evenly over each noodle.
• Start­ing at 1 end, roll each noo­dle like a jelly roll.
• Lay the lasagna rolls seam side down, with­out touch­ing, atop the béchamel sauce in the dish. Repeat with the remain­ing noo­dles and cheese mixture.
• Add the red pep­per flakes and oregano to the pre­pared mari­nara sauce and stir.  Spoon 1 cup of mari­nara sauce over the lasagna rolls.
• Sprin­kle the moz­zarella and remain­ing 2 table­spoons of Parme­san over the lasagna rolls.
• Cover tightly with foil.
• Bake until heated through and the sauce bub­bles, about 20 min­utes. Uncover and bake until the cheese on top becomes golden, about 15 min­utes longer.
• Let stand for 10 minutes.
• Mean­while, heat the remain­ing mari­nara sauce in a heavy small saucepan over medium heat until hot.
• Spoon some sauce on the the plate and care­fully place the lasagna rolls on top and serve.

Gather the Ingredients

My First Suc­cess­ful Béchamel – I’m Like A Proud Parent

Time to com­bine the cheese mix­ture with the noodles

I didn’t have a 9 x 13″ bak­ing dish, but I impro­vised with a Le Creuset bak­ing dish.

Din­ner is served!