Italian cuisine is becoming increasingly popular in our latitudes. There are many explanations for this. First of all, Italian food is very tasty. They seem to carry all the warmth and passion of the south. Secondly, the dishes of this cuisine help to preserve your figure: it is not for nothing that the Italian diet (Mediterranean) is included in the UNESCO List as an intangible heritage of humanity. Thirdly, these dishes are very economical both in ingredients and in terms of preparation time. Today we will talk about lasagna. This dish has replaced spaghetti and pizza as the leaders in popularity among the population. Tender layers of dough, soaked in filling and sauce, simply melt in your mouth. Read about how to prepare lasagna sheets, how long to cook them, and what you can replace these sheets with if you don't feel like fiddling with the dough.

What is lasagna

Italians claim that this dish (or something similar to it) was prepared in ancient Rome. But in New History, lasagna was given to the world by the province of Emilia-Romagna. The capital of this region is Bologna. Over time, every major city in Italy acquired its own recipe for lasagna, but when we talk about the classics of the genre, we mean “Bolognese”.

The dish itself consists of three main parts: dough, or rather, six horizontal flour plates, filling and sauce. In classic lasagna, the minced meat used to spread the sheets is ground beef with spices, tomatoes and wine. The top of the dish is sprinkled with Parmesan cheese. In other parts of the world, there are countless recipes for lasagna: with mozzarella, ricotta, chicken, minced meat, mushrooms, spinach, fish, seafood... You can also experiment with sauces - try, for example, soaking the dish with bechamel or olandez. You can deviate from the classics even in preparing dough sheets. But first, let's look at how to make classic lasagne sheets.

Dough ingredients

The easiest way to “assemble” this dish is to use ready-made (preferably Italian-made) semi-finished products: plates and sauce. Then you can put your whole soul into the filling. The plates are now sold in any large supermarket. We'll talk more about how and how long to cook them. But now let's assume that we don't have the opportunity to buy ready-made lasagna sheets. The recipe for making them is in front of you. All you need is flour, eggs, olive oil and salt. And a couple of strong hands and patience, because you need to knead the dough for a long time and with effort - this is the main secret of tasty and tender lasagna.

Another little trick: the flour should be made from durum wheat. Then the dough will not fall apart due to the abundance of moisture released by the filling and sauce. But, in principle, ordinary white flour of the highest or first grade is also suitable. Olive oil can be replaced with sunflower oil.

Knead the dough

Sift 200 grams of flour through a sieve onto a clean surface. This will enrich it with oxygen, and it will be easier for you to knead the dough. Add a pinch of salt to the flour. At the top of the “slide” we make a small indentation with our finger. Lightly beat two eggs in a separate bowl with a fork. Pour them into the flour “crater”. Let's start kneading the dough. While working, add olive oil - literally one tablespoon. You need to knead for a long time, at least a quarter of an hour (or even better, 25 minutes), so that future lasagna sheets come out elastic. The dough should under no circumstances be sticky, but also not as stiff as for Russian homemade noodles. If you find it too hard, add a little water. If the dough continues to stick to your hands, adjust the desired consistency by adding flour. When you manage to form a bun, hit it forcefully on the tabletop several times. This will make the dough even softer. Then cover the bun with a damp cloth and let it “rest” for about thirty minutes or an hour.

Lasagna sheets: classic recipe and with variations

Once you have kneaded the dough, consider that 80% of the work is done. Next, you just need to form the kolobok into a sausage and cut it into six pieces. Each piece must be rolled out very thin. It is important! If the dough is too thick, it will not cook and the dish will be too tough and will pull on your teeth. Trim the resulting cake to the size of your baking dish. It is also convenient to cut it into wide strips. By the way, lasagna sheets are sold in supermarkets in this form.

Since we are talking about semi-finished plates, we need to mention deviations from the classics. In Italy you can buy green, orange, red and even dark gray sheets. This means that spinach, bell peppers, tomatoes or cuttlefish ink were mixed into the dough. Such additives also affect the taste of the finished lasagna. In addition, this dish looks original.

After cutting, the plates need to be dried a little. Place a large pot of water on the fire. Bring it to a boil. Add salt. Reduce the heat to medium, pour a spoonful of any vegetable oil into the boiling water. Lower the lasagna plates. It is important that they do not stick together. Therefore, we cook no more than two pieces at a time. Some chefs claim that in some types of lasagna there is no need to pre-boil the sheets at all. If you are going to use a filling that produces a lot of juice (for example, minced meat), and add a sufficient amount of sauce, then the thin dough will cook during the baking process, it will have enough moisture released.

Cooking time for plates

In the culinary art of Italy there is the concept of “al dente”. It is mainly used in relation to the preparation of pasta. This term means that the dough should remain just a little raw, undercooked. That is, the pasta should be chewable, but still a little tough. It is in this state that Italians remove the pasta from the heat, place it in a colander, and then cook it with the sauce. “Al dente” - we will answer the question of how long to cook lasagna sheets. It is difficult to calculate the time in minutes - it depends on how thin you rolled the plates. Usually this is 2-3 minutes. Then you need to dip the sheets in cold water to stop the heat treatment process. And then dry them for a quarter of an hour on a napkin.

Plate storage

Lasagna sheets are best used immediately. But sometimes situations occur when much more dough comes out than is required for the existing filling. Then you can prepare the plates for future use. It is most convenient to dry these flour sheets like pasta. Sprinkle them with flour and leave them in a well-ventilated area. And then transfer to a glass container with a lid to protect it from moisture.

You can also freeze the plates in the freezer of the refrigerator. In this case, wrap them in cling film. Homemade plates have one drawback: unlike factory ones, they are very fragile and crumble. Therefore, before eating, they need to be boiled in salted water with the addition of vegetable oil for two minutes.

"Assembling" the dish

Lasagna has clear rules for laying layers. First of all, you need to pour the sauce into the bottom of the baking dish. Béchamel is usually used because the sauce is thick enough to prevent the bottom crust from sticking, but thin enough to allow the dough to cook until fully cooked. The first plate is carefully placed on the sauce. The top is also lightly greased with bechamel. Then add the selected filling. Then everything is repeated: the lasagna sheets are layered with minced meat. The dish is poured with bechamel sauce and baked in the oven. Requires 40-60 minutes at 180°C. Just before the end of the process, the mold is pulled out and grated Parmesan is sprinkled on top of the lasagna. The dish is put back in the oven until a beautiful cheese “cap” is formed. Hot lasagna is difficult to cut into portions. You need to let it stand for a quarter of an hour.

Convenient replacement of cake layers

If we are allowed to experiment with fillings and sauces, then why not show our culinary imagination in preparing plates? What can I substitute for lasagne sheets? You can make (or buy ready-made) puff pastry. The result will be something between Italian lasagna and Bulgarian banitsa, but also very tasty. An economical option would be to use cooked and uneaten pasta. Simply place them in a thin, even layer on top of the sauce, top with the filling and bake. Lasagna made from Italian cannelloni - large-diameter dough tubes - looks original. Then you need to stuff the filling inside the cooked pasta, put it in a mold, pour in the sauce, sprinkle with cheese and bake. But the simplest recipe is the so-called “lazy lasagna”. Instead of cakes, regular lavash is used.

Lasagna is a famous Italian dish and is very popular due to the endless variety of ways it can be prepared. Lasagna is a great second course for your lunch.

What is lasagna:

Lasagna(from Italian lasagne - wide noodles) is a product that is prepared from the same dough as noodles, but it is cut into large rectangles, and factory-made lasagna is usually corrugated.

Advice: Try making different fillings for lasagna - different meats, vegetables, mushrooms.

Advice: Lasagna plates are sold ready-made, but you can make them yourself.

How to prepare lasagna sheets:

Ingredients: 300 g flour, 3 eggs, salt to taste.

Preparation: knead a soft elastic dough from flour, eggs, salt it to taste. Gather it into a ball, cover with a damp towel and leave for 1 hour. Roll out the dough thinly in portions on a board sprinkled with flour, and cut out cakes measuring 15x7 cm. Salted water with vegetable oil (for 4 liters of water, 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil and a tablespoon spoon of salt) bring to a boil and cook 3-4 pieces of plates in it. until half cooked. Place the lasagna sheets on a napkin to dry.

This is what the finished lasagna plates look like:

Lasagna with cauliflower and cheese.
Ingredients: cauliflower 250g, broccoli 250g, lasagna (sheets) 200g, sour cream 500 ml, parsley (finely chopped) 3 tbsp, oregano (fresh) 1 tbsp, olive oil - for greasing, smoked ham (chopped cubes) 200g, cherry tomatoes 12 pcs., cheddar cheese (grated) - 200g.

Preparation:
Preheat the oven to 180C. Cook broccoli and cauliflower in boiling water for 5 minutes. If using dried lasagna sheets that do not need to be pre-cooked, soak them in hot (not boiling) water for 10 minutes to soften them. If you are using fresh lasagna dough, use it as is.
Grease a large baking dish in the oven, place a third of the lasagne dough on the bottom, then half of all the cabbage, half of the ham and half of the tomatoes, one third of the cheese and one third of the sauce. Repeat layers, ending with a layer of dough. Pour the remaining sauce over the top and sprinkle with the remaining grated cheese.
Bake in the oven for 40 minutes, then increase the temperature to 190C and bake for 10 minutes until golden brown. Serve hot with green salad and bread.

Lasagna with chicken and mushrooms.
Products: lasagna (sheets) 3-5 pcs., chicken (carcass), white wine 300g, onion 1 pc., celery (stem) 1 pc., champignons 300g, parsley to taste, butter 150g, 2 cloves of garlic, wheat flour 3 tbsp, grated cheese 200g, parmesan cheese 50g, liquid cream 1 glass, salt, pepper (peas) - to taste.
Preparation:
Cut the chicken in half, pour in 1 liter of water and half the amount of wine, add salt, onion, celery, a few peppercorns and cook until tender at a low boil. Cool the chicken, separate the flesh from the bones and cut into small pieces. Strain the broth.
Lightly fry the chopped garlic in oil, add slices of mushrooms and fry for another 5 minutes, then add flour, fry, stirring, for 5-7 minutes. Cool slightly, pour in the broth and the remaining wine, simmer the sauce until thickened. Remove from heat, add herbs, some cheese, cream, stir.
Boil the lasagne sheets in salted water and place them in cold water for a few minutes.
Pour a little sauce into a rectangular dish, place a layer of lasagne, place a piece of chicken on it, pour the sauce over it. Alternate layers 3-4 times. Pour the remaining sauce over the top layer, sprinkle with cheese and bake in the oven at 230C for 40-50 minutes.

Lasagna with tomatoes.
Ingredients: lasagna 15 plates, tomatoes 1.2 kg, greens 1 bunch, garlic 1 clove, onions 2 pcs., vegetable oil 2 tbsp. l., salt and pepper to taste, flour 2 tbsp. l., butter 1.5 tbsp. l., milk 3 cups, boiled ham 400g, grated cheese (not very hard) 250g, nutmeg to taste, basil to taste.
Preparation:
Cut the tomatoes into slices, the rest into circles. Finely chop the garlic and onion, simmer in hot vegetable oil until transparent. Add tomato slices and finely chopped herbs, salt and pepper.
Reduce the sauce to a thick consistency. Fry the flour in 60 g of butter, add milk little by little and stir until the sauce thickens. Season the sauce with nutmeg, salt and pepper. Grease a casserole dish with the remaining butter and add lasagne. Place slices of ham, tomato sauce, more than half of the grated cheese, milk sauce and lasagna on top. Bake for about 30 minutes. in preheated to t = 200 C. Then cover the lasagna with tomato slices and sprinkle with the remaining cheese. Place in the oven for another 10 minutes.

Lasagna with minced meatAndzucchini.
Ingredients: lasagna plates for three layers, 2 onions, 1-2 carrots, 2 tablespoons parsley, half a medium-sized zucchini, 500 g mixed minced meat, 3 tablespoons tomato sauce, salt to taste, pepper to taste, olive oil (can be replaced with vegetable oil), hard cheese 300 g.
For bechamel sauce: 3 tbsp flour. spoons, butter 75 g, milk 300 g, Italian dry herbs, salt, pepper, grated nutmeg half a teaspoon.

Pasta lasagne.
Products: pasta 500g, onion 1 piece, beef stroganoff 500g, pickled vegetables (mixture) 250g, tomatoes (in their own juice) 400g, vegetable oil 1 tbsp, garlic 2 cloves, milk 100 ml, mayonnaise 100g, cheese cheddar 100g.
Preparation:
In heated vegetable oil, fry the onion until tender, add meat, garlic, vegetables, tomatoes, stir and simmer for 20 minutes.
Boil the pasta, drain in a colander. Return to the pan, add milk, mayonnaise, half the cheese. Cook for another 3 minutes.
Place meat with vegetables, pasta, and grated cheese on top in a baking dish. Bake in the oven until golden brown.

Lasagna with mushrooms and shrimp (from pita bread).
Products: pita bread, champignons, shrimp, cheese, cream, seafood seasoning mixture.
Preparation: make it like regular lasagna, sprinkle cheese and seafood seasonings on top, use 33% cream.
Bake in the oven.

Apple lasagna.
Ingredients: cheddar cheese (grated) 2 cups, ricotta cheese 1 cup, one egg, sugar 1/4 cup, almonds (grated) 1 tsp, apples 700g, lasagna (plates) 8 pcs., flour 6 tbsp. ., brown sugar 6 tbsp, cinnamon 1/2 tsp, nutmeg 1 pinch, butter 3 tbsp.
for cream: cream 1 cup, sugar 1/3 cup.
Preparation:
Preheat the oven to 175C. Mix well the cheddar cheese, cheese, egg, white sugar, and grated almonds. Peel the apples, cut into slices and sauté in oil until soft. Boil the lasagna sheets, rinse with cold water and dry. Layer the apples, lasagne slices and cheese mixture on a baking sheet (first layer of lasagna, last layer of apples). Mix flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, fry a little in oil and pour on top. Bake for 45 minutes, leave to cool.
Meanwhile, whip cream and brown sugar and refrigerate. Serve warm lasagna with whipped cream.

Italian recipe for making lasagna plates at home. You can roll it out by hand or using a noodle cutter. Both options are detailed below. Watch the video to see how to roll out and cut out the plates for homemade lasagna!

Ingredients
Yields: 450 g of dough, lasagna for 6-8 servings

• 275 g Italian flour grade 00, or plain flour
• 3 large eggs
• 1 pinch of salt

Cooking method
Preparation: 20 minutes > +let stand for 30 minutes › Total time: 50 min

How to roll out with a rolling pin

How to roll out using a machine

If you prepare in advance..

1. It is best to knead the dough on a marble or wooden surface. Pour flour into a mound, make a well in the center, break eggs into the well, add salt.
2. Using a fork, carefully mix the eggs into the flour, not allowing them to spread. You should end up with a thin paste in the center.
3. Use a scraper to scrape the flour into the center to avoid getting your hands dirty. If the dough turns out very tight, add a little water, 1 tbsp. at a time.
4. When the dough comes together into a ball, begin kneading by hand. Flatten into a flat cake, stretch slightly and fold the edge towards the center. Rotate 45 degrees and repeat this movement again. Knead in this way for 10 minutes, you should get a soft pliable dough.
5. Collect into a ball, place in a bowl, cover with film and refrigerate for 30-60 minutes.
6. Roll out with a rolling pin or using a noodle cutter.
7. Divide the dough into 3 parts. Take 1 part, flatten it and roll it out with a rolling pin 5-6 times. Continue rolling, turning all the time, until you achieve an even thickness of the layer.
8. For lasagna: Roll out into a thin layer (1 mm thick). Cut out rectangles based on the size of your shape. Leave to dry on a floured towel or parchment paper for 30 minutes. If you roll out thin enough, the plates do not need to be cooked before use.
9. Divide the dough into 3 parts. Sprinkle each part with flour. Skip at the thickest thickness. Sprinkle with flour again, fold like a book, skip again. And so 3-4 times until the dough becomes completely smooth, not sticky, the surface is smooth, without roughness.
10. Set medium thickness, skip 1 time. Then to the penultimate thickness, 1 more time.
11. Cut the long layer in half. Pass each half at the thinnest thickness. You will get a long thin layer of dough. Place to dry on a towel sprinkled with flour. You should have only 6 of these plates.
12. Let dry for 30 minutes, cut into plates depending on your shape. Assemble the lasagna. The plates do not need to be boiled first.
13. Leave to dry overnight, adding more flour if the paste is still wet. In the morning the paste will become hard. Place in a paper bag and use within 2-3 days.

Ingredients
It turns out: 450 g (lasagna for 6-8 people, noodles for 5-6 people)

• 275 g premium wheat flour, + more for rolling
• 3 large eggs
• 1 pinch of salt

Cooking method
Preparation: 20 minutes > +30 min > Total time: 50 min

If you roll it out with a rolling pin...

In a dough cutting machine...

1. Place the flour in a heap on the table, make a hole in the center into which to break the eggs. Add salt.
2. Using a fork, gently stir the eggs into the flour in the center until you get a sticky paste.
3. Then scoop the rest of the flour into the center with a scraper or spatula, so as not to get your hands dirty yet, because the dough is very sticky at the first stage. If necessary, add water, 1 tbsp. at a time, just so that the dough can be kneaded, it will still be tight.
4. When the dough comes together into a ball, start kneading with your hands. Flatten, stretch and fold in half. Rotate 45 degrees, repeat. And so many times, many, many times!
5. Knead for about 10 minutes until the dough ball becomes smooth, soft, uniform and elastic.
6. Place in a bowl, cover with film. Place in the refrigerator for 30-60 minutes.
7. Roll out using a pasta machine or rolling pin.
8. Divide the dough into 3 parts. Take one part, flatten it and roll it out with a rolling pin 5-6 times. Rotate 45 degrees, another 5-6 times. Continue in this manner until you get an even layer of dough, the same thickness on all sides.
9. For lasagna: roll out the dough to a thickness of 1 mm, use a knife or pizza wheel to cut into rectangles that are the size of your baking dish. Transfer to a towel sprinkled with flour and dry uncovered for 30 minutes. If the dough is rolled out thin enough, the plates do not need to be pre-boiled before baking.
10. For medium tagliatelle noodles: Roll out the dough into a layer 2 mm thick. Sprinkle the table generously with flour. Roll the dough into a roll and cut the noodles 7 mm thick. Unwrap the noodles, immediately transfer them to a floured tablecloth to prevent them from sticking, and let them dry for 30 minutes. Then cook for 3-5 minutes in boiling salted water, al dente.
11. For the thin Tagliolini noodles: Everything is the same as for medium noodles, only cut 3 mm wide.
12. For the wide Pappardelle noodles: The width of the noodles is 2.5 cm.
13. Divide the dough into 3 equal parts. Flatten the lump and pass through the widest slit. Dust with flour, fold in half like a book, repeat 3-4 times, sprinkling with flour all the time, until the dough is completely smooth, non-sticky and of uniform thickness.
14. Install a slot of medium thickness. Skip each layer of dough once. Rearrange to the penultimate thickness, skip 1 more time.
15. For the lasagna: Cut the long rectangle of dough in half. Pass through the smallest gap, you will get a long thin layer of dough. Repeat, you should have 6 lasagna sheets. Place on a towel dusted with flour.
16. Cut the plates in proportion to your baking dish, dry for 30 minutes and assemble the lasagna. The plates do not need to be boiled further.
17. For noodles: The dough for noodles should be slightly thicker than for lasagna, pass only through the penultimate slot of the machine. Cut the dough sheet in half.
18. Set your own attachment for each type of noodle. Roll the dough with one hand and support it as it comes out with the other.
19. Sprinkle with flour and carefully place on the tablecloth. Dry for 30 minutes, then cook in plenty of boiling salted water for 3-5 minutes, or al dente.

Storage

The finished noodles can be dried until they are firm, sprinkled with more flour and stored for several days (no more than a week) in paper (not plastic) bags.

Type of flour

If you live in Italy or Europe, buy "00" flour to make pasta.

require special sheets. You can buy them in the store, or you can cook it yourself. If you decide to cook lasagne sheets on your own, this one recipe for you. All you need is flour, eggs, salt and butter.

Portions: 8.

Cooking time: 45 minutes.

Lasagna dough ingredients:

1. Flour – 400 gr.
2. Eggs – 2 pcs.
3. The water is cold – 40 gr.
4. Salt – 1 teaspoon.
5. Sunflower oil – 1 tablespoon.

Lasagna dough recipe:

Sift the flour so that it is enriched with oxygen and becomes more fluffy.

Make a hole in the resulting mound of flour for the eggs.

Beat the eggs into the well and add water. Add oil and salt.

Selected eggs were used for this recipe; if you use grade 1 or 2 eggs, you need to increase the number of eggs, otherwise the dough will turn out too tough. Eggs of 1st grade will need 3 pieces, 2nd grade - 4- 5 pieces.

Knead dough, you will have to knead for a long time (5-10 minutes). If dough too steep (hard) add a little water. Knead until it becomes homogeneous and stops sticking to your hands. Cover dough cling film or put in a bag to prevent it from drying out and let stand for about 30 minutes.

Divide dough into 6 equal parts. It can be divided into another number of parts, it all depends on the size of the plates that you want to get in the end. The size can be equal to the size of the dish in which the lasagna will be baked or a smaller size for more convenient storage.

Take one of the parts and roll it out with a rolling pin to a thickness of approximately 1-1.5 mm.

Use a knife to give the desired shape lasagna sheet and repeat with all parts test. Shape the scraps, divide them into two parts and form two more sheets. Lasagne sheets Can be used immediately, dried or frozen. Dried up sheets Before use, boil for 2 minutes in salted water, as they crumble a lot, and

Today, I propose to learn how to cook the key component of classic Italian lasagna. Let's prepare lasagna sheets according to a traditional Italian recipe. We will reveal all the secrets, methods and subtleties of preparing and storing lasagna sheets at home. Shall we begin?!

Prepare the ingredients according to the list.

Sift 350 grams of wheat flour onto a work surface. Use the remaining 50 grams of flour as needed while working with the dough.

Traditionally, premium wheat flour from durum wheat is used for cooking, but if you don’t have such flour on hand, you can use regular flour.

Make a small well in the center of the flour, add eggs and 1-2 pinches of salt.

To prepare this type of dough, the following proportions are considered classic: 1 egg weighing 70 grams for every 100 grams of flour. Based on these proportions, you can prepare exactly as much dough as is needed for a specific lasagna recipe or the size of the mold in which you plan to cook lasagna.

In order not to have to take precise measurements of the weight of each egg used, it is better to initially add a little less flour to the dough (in this case, 350 grams for 4 eggs).

Mix the eggs with a fork until smooth.

Working from the center of the well outwards, gradually combine the flour and egg mixture.

When the egg mixture thickens a little, you can proceed to kneading the dough.

Gradually knead the dough, form it into a ball, and then knead with stretching movements, 10-15 minutes, until it becomes smooth, elastic and shiny.

If the dough is a little dry, add a few drops of olive oil.

Then form the dough into a ball, cover with cling film and place in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes. If necessary, the dough can be prepared in advance and left in the refrigerator for a day. The longer the dough rests, the softer and more elastic it becomes.

For ease of further work, sprinkle the work surface with flour and divide the dough into 2 parts. Punch down a portion of the dough and roll out to a thickness of about 0.5 centimeters, rolling the rolling pin back and forth across the entire surface of the dough. If necessary, sprinkle flour on the work surface.

When the dough reaches a thickness of 0.5 centimeters, we proceed to rolling out the dough from the center to the edges, turning the dough layer if necessary so that the dough stretches evenly. If desired, further rolling of the dough can be done using a dough rolling machine.

Continue rolling out the dough until it is 1mm thick. At this point the dough will become translucent and light. If you blow on a sheet of dough from the side, the blow will cause the edge of the dough to rise.

Cut the dough into desired size pieces.

For convenience, you can cut out a template from thick cardboard in advance, focusing on the size of the baking dish in which you plan to cook lasagna.

Place the resulting dough sheets on a floured work surface and cover with cling film to prevent the sheets from drying out. You can place the next batch of lasagna sheets on the cling film, not forgetting to add a new layer of cling film. This way the sheets won’t stick together, dry out, and won’t take up much space in the kitchen.

The lasagne sheets are ready.

Before using, it is advisable to boil the lasagna sheets in boiling salted water for 30 seconds. From the specified amount of dough, I usually get 15-18 lasagna sheets, measuring 9*17 cm. Using these sheets, you can prepare a large, 5-6-layer lasagna in a mold measuring 20*30 cm.

Homemade lasagne sheets are not intended for long-term storage. You can knead the dough a day before preparing lasagna, and roll out, cut and boil the dough sheets immediately before preparing it.