Skillet Lasagna - Cooks All in One Skillet

We LOVE lasagna at my house.  I normally make a big pan of it, after MAKING homemade sauce, boiling noodles, and placing ALL OF THAT in a big baking dish.  It's a lot of work but normally we all think that it was worth all of old Mom's work because we all love it (in spite of all of that work and dirty dishes) and we eagerly eat up all of the leftovers.

Since I have been on a pinning frenzy lately on Pinterest, I found this terrific idea for Skillet Lasagna.  Boing!  Why hadn't I thought of that?  It only makes sense that you can cook lasagna all in one skillet just like you do when you make Homemade Cheeseburger Helper. 

My family likes a pretty stripped down version of lasagna.  They want meat sauce, pasta, and mozzerella.  That's it. I took the recipe that I originally pinned and tailored it just a little bit for my own family.

I found the original recipe for Skillet Lasagna at Cooking with Libby.  Libby's pictures are WAY better than anything I could ever hope to take. This is a delicious, easy, and super quick way to put something on the table that the entire family loves.  Libby uses a layer of a cottage cheese/cream cheese/parmesan cheese mixture that sounds perfectly dreamy and creamy to me but remember that my family wants "stripped down" lasagna (ha!).  I bet it's super duper yummy with that in there though and I would love to try it sometime.  I have to remember thought that my hubby did not grow up eating lasagna so I count my lucky stars that I can have it at all..ha-ha!  But, I want to give a special shout out to Libby for inspiring me with this terrific idea!  It's just wonderful!

I keep jars of my own homemade meat spaghetti sauce in the freezer.  I make a big pot and then freeze the leftovers for later.  The recipe for my homemade spaghetti sauce is HERE.  But I won't always use homemade sauce.  I expect fully to make this recipe with jarred spaghetti sauce (my favorite is at Aldi).

Here's how I made Skillet Lasagna AT HOME MY WAY:

 

Skillet Lasagna (as adapted from Cooking with Libby)

 

• 1 pound ground beef
• 1 (24 oz) jar of spaghetti sauce (homemade or purchased)
• 1 1/2 cups water
• 7-9 lasagna noodles (uncooked)
• 1/3 cup parmesan cheese (optional) (omit if using creamy layer)
• 2 cups grated mozzerella

 

Optional creamy layer as found on Cooking with Libby

• 1 (16 oz.) container low-fat cottage cheese
• 1 (8 oz.) package third less fat cream cheese (softened)
• 1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 1/4 cup sliced green onions
• 1 tbsp. dried parsley flakes

 

Directions:

 

Brown ground beef, drain, add the jar of sauce, water.  Stir well, Add pasta (broken into thirds or fourths) (I used 9 pieces of pasta) so that it fits all in the pan.  Bring to a simmer, stirring occasionally so that the pasta doesn't sink to the bottom and stick.  Cook with a lid approximately 15 minutes with the lid on (stirring occasionally) until the pasta/sauce looks like this:

 

 

 

If using the optional "creamy layer", combine those ingredients and dollop/spread over the cooked sauce/pasta. 

 

 

Top with grated cheese:

 

 

 

 

Turn the burner off, cover, and let the cheese melt.

 

 

 

Remove from the burner, let sit 5 minutes before serving.

 

 

 



 

I served mine with a little baby spinach/Homemade Ranch dressing. It was a feast!

 

 

Enjoy!

 

Gina