Doc Bear's Lasagna

A traditional layered lasagna with meat sauce, ricotta cheese mixture, and mozzarella. This recipe includes detailed assembly instructions and proper temperature checking for food safety.

Doc Bear's Lasagna

Ingredients

  • 1 lb lasagna noodles
  • 2 qts Doc Bear's Meat Sauce
  • 30 oz Ricotta Cheese
  • 2 each eggs
  • 1 lb Mozzarella cheese (slices or shredded)
  • .5 lb Grated parmesan cheese

Instructions

  1. Preheat an oven to 350°F
  2. Take both containers of ricotta cheese and put them in a medium bowl. Add the two eggs and mix thoroughly. Set aside.
  3. Wash, rinse, and sanitize your kitchen sink and fill with extremely hot water.
  4. If your water is not hot enough, you can boil water and either place it in the sink or use the large pot to soften the noodles.
  5. Place the noodles in the sink or the pot of water, so that they are completely covered.
  6. Using tongs, move them occasionally so they do not stick together.
  7. Noodles will be soft enough after 10 minutes in the water.
  8. Take a ½ size hotel pan with 5" sides, or a ½ size aluminum pan, and coat with cooking spray.
  9. Add enough meat sauce to coat the bottom of the pan.
  10. Using tongs, remove three lasagna noodles from the water and lay them next to each other on top of the meat sauce. Take three more noodles and overlap the first layer of noodles.
  11. Using a spoon, take some of the ricotta cheese mix and spread it over the noodles at no more than ¼ inch thick. When done, sprinkle with grated parmesan cheese.
  12. Next, cover completely with meat sauce and then add a small layer of mozzarella, either slices or shredded.
  13. Repeat the levels, 3 noodles, ricotta cheese, parmesan, meat sauce, mozzarella, until there are only 6 noodles left in the water.
  14. At this point, take the noodles and overlap them across the entire lasagna.
  15. Then continue the rest of the level and stop at the meat sauce.
  16. Cover dish with foil, keeping the foil from touching the meat sauce.
  17. Place in the preheated oven and cook for 45 minutes or until a thermometer reads 165°F when inserted into the center of the lasagna.
  18. Check several spots in the center to make sure.
  19. If not at the correct temperature, recover with the foil and continue cooking for 15 minutes at a time and rechecking the temperature.
  20. Once the lasagna reaches the proper temperature, remove foil, and cover with Mozzarella cheese and return to oven so it can melt.
  21. If you would like to brown the cheese, place it under the broiler set to low until desired doneness is achieved.
  22. Once cheese is melted, allow lasagna to set for 10 minutes before cutting and serving. This will generally help keep the lasagna from falling apart when taken out of the dish.