Lazy Off-Grid Lasagna: Big Flavor, Minimal Effort

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I’ve always wanted to experiment with making a great, homemade lasagna dish — but honestly, it’s always been a bit too intimidating, which is odd because I’ve blogged about food and recipes since 2009!! That’s 15 years of food blogging, you’d think I’d feel confident LOL!

Something about lasagna was just scary 🫣 all those layers probably — but now that we’ve tried it a few times, and got the whole family involved, I can tell you it’s REALLY EASY.

Especially if you do it the lazy way, using Oven Ready Lasagna Noodles, a good pre-made sauce mix and ricotta cheese, instead of the more authentic Béchamel sauce (which is a white sauce made from a French roux but with cheese added).

Sometimes you just need something on the table a little faster!

I’ll be adding a more authentic and rustic recipe soon (we can’t stop experimenting with this!), but for now, enjoy this Lazy Off Grid Recipe – it has BIG flavor and is so easy to put together a toddler can do it!

I used a beautifully hand-crafted Emile Henry lasagna dish found here. The Emile Henry brand is hand-crafted in France since 1850, and are just incredible quality – I have fallen in love with their elegant bakeware!

This dish is a few inches deeper than your regular Pyrex casserole dish, so you can fit more layering in to get a higher top lasagna.

Feel free to use a Pyrex casserole dish though if that’s what you have! You can even probably do 2 Pyrex dishes at the same time, and surprise another family with lasagna if you’d like!

Lazy Off-Grid Lasagna

20 min Prep & 45 min to Bake Time at 350℉

Ingredients

Red Meat Sauce Layer

• 1 pound Ground Chuck Beef (I used 80/20)
• 2 pounds Italian Sausage (ground works better than links)
• 2 Large Prego Pasta Sauce Jars (45oz each)
• Spices: Garlic, Oregano, and Basil (I used dried to make it extra fast, but you can use fresh if you have them ready in your garden)
• 1 box Oven Ready Lasagna Noodles (I used our Texan HEB brand and was super happy with the results)

3-Cheese “White” Layer

• 6 large eggs, beaten
• 15 oz Ricotta Cheese
• 4 cups Mozzarella Cheese (2 for in the mix and 2 cups reserved for the topping)
• 2 cups Parmesan Cheese

Get your oven ready to be at 350-375℉ – if you’re using a wood cook stove off grid, we have the fastest method for you to get your wood cook stove up to temp – click here!

Instructions

Lasagna is all about the layers, so first, we have to pre-mix them!

Start cooking the ground beef and Italian sausage together in a heavy bottom sauce pan. Add the extra seasonings after they’ve browned a bit.

Once the meats are, “just-cooked,” you’ll want to stop since the time in the oven will help finish cooking them. Add your Prego pasta sauces and stir the meats into them to incorporate.

Next you’ll want to get your 3-Cheese “White” layer ready!

In a large mixing bowl, crack the 6 eggs and beat them until they’re bright yellow.

Add the Ricotta cheese, Mozzarella cheese, and the Parmesan cheese and mix together with a whisk or fork until they’re all incorporated into the eggs.

Food Science Tip – The eggs help the ricotta and cheeses to fluff up and bind together when baking, instead of having your white layer ending up runny!

1st layer section

• Start with a thin layer of the red meat sauce before anything else goes into your dish
• Next, layer down the first of the lasagna noodles, being careful to not overlap them, and breaking them into pieces if needed to fill in the sides
• Then add the 3-cheese “white” layer directly on top of your bare pasta noodles (about 1/4 inch in thickness)
• Close the 1st layer section with another generous portion of the red meat sauce

2nd layer

• Next add a layer of the Oven Ready lasagna pasta noodles onto that last red sauce layer
• On top of the noodles, add the 3-Cheese “white” layer again
• Close this 2nd layer section with another generous portion of the red meat sauce

3rd layer

• Layer the next noodles down again
• Add the 3-Cheese white layer directly on top of the noodles
• And close this section with another generous portion of the red meat sauce

4th layer/topping

• If you have more noodles and room in your lasagna dish, go ahead and create more layers copying the pattern we’ve created. We didn’t have anymore room and had to close it out with a last layer of mozzarella and parmesan cheese layer topping – using all the cheese we had left before popping it in the oven. Believe it or not, this is the 11th layer technically! That is A LOT of layers that fit in the Emile Henry dish!

Now pop it into your oven for 45-50 minutes if your oven is at 350℉ to 375℉, or until the noodles are fork-tender. If you’re having trouble getting your wood-cook stove up to temp (which is normal when you’re first starting to bake in it), you can actually slow-bake this at 250℉ for about 2 hours and it still comes out perfectly!

See, I told you it’s the, “lazy,” way – this recipe is fool-proof!

It came out perfectly both times we made it – first the slow-baked way, and second the faster way, which browned the edges a bit more.

Off Grid People — If you need help figuring out how to control the baking temperature in your wood cook stove, click here for help!

Altogether to prep time took about 20 minutes, and the bake time took 45 minutes (45-50 minutes) or until the noodles are fork-tender all over the dish.

I hope you enjoy this fast and easy dish! Don’t be intimidated like I was, the minimal effort is more than worth it, and you’ll be wanting to make it again and again ❤️.