Italian Sausage: 6 links at 2.99 a pound = 5.35  (Sale at Whole Foods)

Garlic Salt, Pepper, Italian Seasonings, Garlic, Onion

Pasta Sauce Jar = 1.50 (Target)

Diced Tomatoes = 2 at $1 = $2 (Target)

Half a box of Lasagna Noodles = 1.25  (Im not sure

Cheese, Sliced Mozzarella, .5 pounds at 5.99 a pound = 2.98

Cheese, Romano .25 pounds at 9.99 a pound = 2.50

Basic Recipe:

Cook Italian Sausage, with onion and garlic.  I tend to add red pepper flakes, but I like really spicy food. Drain sausage.

Combine Jarred Pasta Sauce (yeah, im cheating, so what?) with diced tomatoes.  I like how the jarred sauce is almost spiced correctly, but I like the chunkyness that diced tomatoes add.  I have attempted to make my own tomato sauce, with tomatoes and tomato paste, and it never quite comes out right.  I even attempted Alton Brown’s Pantry Tomato Sauce;.  (The tomatoes never roasted.  They got hot, and that was about it.  Utter waste of two hours of oven time.)

Add spices and cook (very slow simmer) for a while, taste to see if spice is right, and cook more.

Boil the lasagna noodles, and lay out on foil or parchment paper to cool.

Micrograte the Romano.

Put Italian Sausage into the tomato sauce, and let cook for a few.

I use 2 pound disposable foil containers, because I like to freeze my lasagnas.  Spoon some sauce into the bottom of the container.   Lay a noodle on top, and spoon on more sauce, then cheese, then noodle, then sauce, then cheese, then noodle, then sauce.

(So, noodle sauce cheese, except the last layer, you want to be just sauce on top, as cheese on top can burn.)

Stay tuned for how it turned out!

Yeah, though, I have already made lasagna in the past.  And, its turned out pretty good.  Meat, tomato sauce, pasta, and cheese, it can be hard to mess up.

Though, I have messed it up in the past.  Typically, I make lasagna to freeze.  I used no boil noodles, which do not handle freezing and reheating well.  After eating crunchy noodle lasagna once, I always cook my noodles.

I think my best attempt was using marinated mozzarella as the middle layer.  It was excellent, and I must do that again sometime.

My secret is using Italian Sausage in my meat sauce.  I tend to use turkey Italian sausage, as it seems more healthy than pork sausage.  Then again, I used pork sausage once to make Italian Sausage soup, which was the time that I found out about my gallstones, so I might be biased against it.