Get the Recipe
- ▢ 1 pound ground turkey
- ▢ 5 cloves garlic (minced)
- ▢ 1 jar tomato/pasta sauce (25 ounces)
- ▢ 10 oz. no-boil lasagna noodles
- ▢ 1 tablespoon Italian seasoning
- ▢ 15 ounces ricotta cheese
- ▢ 1 egg
- ▢ 8 ounces mozzarella and Parmesan
- ▢ 4 ounces cheddar cheese ( for the top)
- ▢ 1 tablespoon parsley or basil (chopped)
- Cook the ground turkey and minced garlic in a big pan or skillet until it’s done. After removing the heat, add the Italian seasoning and tomato sauce.
- Combine the ricotta, egg, mozzarella, and Parmesan cheese in a mixing bowl.
- Pour the meat sauce into a rectangular baking pan in a thin layer. Then add a layer of noodles (dry, do not boil). Then a layer of the cheese mix. Continue until almost all of the noodles, meat sauce, and cheese have been used. Make an effort to coat the uppermost layer of noodles with cheese and sauce.
- Cover and refrigerate overnight.
- Add four additional ounces of cheese and the fresh herbs on top. Bake at 350°F for 1 hour, covered. Then remove the cover and bake an additional 10 minutes.
I hate to be the life of the party, but using pasta in a baked dish without boiling it first doesn’t usually work out. Even freshly made pasta requires a brief immersion in hot water. This is due to the fact that cooking pasta aims to hydrate and plump each grain of flour rather than just making it soft. Your sauce won’t get that hydrated without boiling, even if it’s extremely moist. That’s not to say the pasta won’t turn out well; it just won’t taste as good. It is comparable to the difference between homemade and boxed Jello pudding. In connection with that, the majority of no-boil pastas undergo boiling during production before being dehydrated.
My mother-in-law is from the old country, Sicilia. She showed me how to layer the noodles with ingredients after submerging them in boiling water for two minutes. Small amount of water added to the sauce. Chopped fresh spinach is another excellent addition to add color. Black olives are good too. Take it from the horses mouthe mother knows best.
I’ve found that you need to add more sauce—not necessarily more water. I don’t want to use water or broth, but there’s a bit too much sauce for my taste. Even no-boil noodles, I’ve discovered, require additional liquid to cook through. I soaked regular noodles in hot water with two tablespoons of salt (for seasoning) until they were pliable, about 12 minutes. I stirred occasionally to make sure they didn’t stick together (some did, but the rest were fine). I used this alternative no-boil method tonight with great success. With tongs, I removed the dripping wet sheets and layered them as normal. I experimented because I was extremely exhausted. It worked perfectly. I avoided having to clean a second pot. I’ll never boil lasagna noodles again. Waste of a pot & fuel. Therefore, you can skip boiling regular noodles, but use caution (use extra sauce).
Another way to put it is that as long as the casserole is tightly covered, the bake time is adequate, and the sauce is sufficiently moist, you can use lasagna noodles as you describe when feeding the junior high wrestling team. This kind of thing has countless, countless recipes available on the internet. Boil your lasagna noodles if you want to receive a Michelin star.
I seem to recall that you had to use more liquid than usual and make sure the noodles were both above and below a moist layer. Additionally, you cooked everything for a fairly long time to allow everything to absorb (I want to say 350F for 1. 5 to 2 hours, though I usually just cooked it until a knife easily entered, at which point I placed it under the broiler to get it bubbly.)
