Boiling the noodles is definitely my least favorite part of making lasagna.
I used to purchase the no-boil noodles until I realized that the instructions were the same but that the no-boil noodles required twice as much sauce, and that I was paying more for a smaller package.
My frugal brain began to churn over this, so a few years ago I decided to see if I could get the same results using regular noodles and doubling the sauce for lasagna as I could with the more expensive no-boil noodles and double the sauce.
To my surprise, it seemed to work pretty well!
After that, I did some research and found that there is really no difference between regular lasagna noodles and no-boil lasagna noodles other than the fact that the latter are slightly pre-boiled before drying.
I’ve tried a few different approaches to my favorite lasagna recipes before settling on one that seems to work incredibly well for me. It easily saves me 15 minutes of prep time—and a lot of frustration!
To be completely honest, I think the meal tastes more “starchy” when the noodles aren’t boiled first, but no one in our family seems to mind.
That being said, I think I would boil the noodles first if I were preparing this for company or for someone else.
Yes, you can stir the lasagna noodles in the pot of boiling water to prevent them from sticking to the bottom, but who likes to hover over a boiling pot of water watching those lasagna noodles? Boiling lasagna noodles is a hassle—you have to wait for the water to boil, handle the pot of hot water so you can drain it, and the worst part is if the noodles stick to the bottom of the pot and get torn!
Making no-boil lasagna is easy. To make no-boil lasagna, you must do the following two steps:
1) Soak lasagna noodles in hot water; 2) Dilute tomato sauce with additional water
Soaking lasagna noodles is super easy. Simply place them in a baking dish and add hot tap water to it. That’s it! While you make the other lasagna ingredients, leave it on the counter for fifteen minutes. After removing the noodles from the hot water, put your lasagna together as normal.
Here’s the picture of lasagna noodles soaking in hot water in a glass baking dish: 
