In full disclosure I, in spite of my name, am not at all Italian…I married into that name once upon a time. But I have adored Italian food forever. And the American version of it as well. Italian food in Italy is fabulous, but much more varied and regional than we think of as traditional Italian food here.

I grew up with lasagna on New Year’s Day as our family tradition - my dad made it once a year and that was the appointed day! Since it is wonderful excuse to eat this ridiculously decadent pasta and cheese overload, I have continued that tradition. I mean what could be better than carbs plus cheese??? And tomato is a vegetable y’all! (well technically a fruit, but it’s definitely in the plus column on healthiness).

Our traditional lasagna is a combination of layered cheese, tomato sauce, and pasta sheets. Some people swear by including a béchamel white sauce for truly decadent lasagna - I don’t use that with our traditional lasagna, though I have a totally different white lasagna recipe I make in which I do use it.

Once you have the sauce, lasagna is insanely easy to put together. It freezes well too, so I often make an extra or freeze the leftovers for another night!

There are a zillion Italian dishes that are essentially lasagna ingredients in different shapes…baked ziti, stuffed shells, ravioli, tortellini, manicotti (though I prefer this done the traditional way with crepes rather than pasta - the pasta version is technically cannelloni even though the tubes are sold as “manicotti” here…confusing)

Some Italians refer to tomato sauce as ‘gravy’, but gravy in my world is brown so we just call it sauce 😄. I make my own sauce - more or less. My father-in-law used to grow enough tomatoes to supply most of the state so I used fresh tomatoes in season when I was young and still married, but the rest of the time I use canned, which makes it way easier and honestly, just as good. Home made, even the shortcut version with canned tomatoes, is worlds better than sauce from a jar.

Making sauce is an inexact science - you have to taste it to see what YOU like and correct the seasoning and ingredients as you go.

Some people include other veggies like carrots and celery…what???. I do not - in my brain those belong in soups and stews but not in tomato sauce. My non-negotiable veggies are garlic and onions and I also like to add bell peppers.

For canned tomatoes, I use ‘crushed peeled with added puree’. Real San Marzano tomatoes are a bit sweeter and make a really nice sauce, but they are significantly more expensive. I compensate for that by using regular tomatoes and adding a bit of *gasp* sugar, which works beautifully. If I have any leftover red wine sitting around needing to be used up, I’ll add that as well.

In terms of herbs, dried are perfectly fine. When I have fresh basil growing in my patio pots in the summer, I include some of that, but it isn’t appreciably different using fresh herbs in this long simmering sauce, and the flavor of dried is more concentrated so you need less than you would of fresh to get the same amount of impact. I always add basil, oregano, some red pepper flakes, and a couple of bay leaves. Some people also include rosemary - do whatever appeals to your mood.

I make a large vat every time I make sauce because it freezes beautifully and is useful in so many Italian-American dishes like chicken or eggplant Parmesan, and of course in any pasta dish.

None of these amounts are cast in stone - I don’t actually measure anything when I make this, so this is my best guesstimate. You can adjust the amounts to suite what you have on hand.

You can also make this as a meat sauce instead of making meatballs, just brown a mixture of ground beef and ground pork in the pot along with the vegetables.

Janet’s Tomato Sauce

Makes ~ 6 quarts

Ingredients

~2 tbsp olive oil for sautéing vegetables
6 cloves minced garlic
2 sweet onions peeled and chopped
2 red or green bell peppers seeded and chopped
6 28 oz cans crushed peeled tomatoes with added puree (sometimes labeled ‘kitchen ready’) OR you can use fresh tomatoes ground through a foley food mill. If using *fresh tomatoes, add a can of tomato paste.
~1 cup red wine (optional)
2 Tbsp sugar (optional)
~ 1+ tbsp dried basil
~ 1+ tbsp dried oregano
2-3 bay leaves
Pinch red pepper flakes
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions

In a large stock pot, heat oil
Add garlic, onion, and peppers and sauce until softened and onions start to turn translucent.
Add tomatoes, using wine or water to rinse the cans and add to the pot
Add remaining ingredients and simmer uncovered ~1 hr. You can simmer as long as you like - *fresh tomatoes will need to simmer longer to cook down a bit.

I almost always make meatballs when I make tomato sauce….homemade meatballs are sooooo good they are worth the little bit of extra effort AND they add nice flavor to the sauce as well. And meatball subs are a great easy meal too!

I make meatballs with a mixture of ground beef and ground pork. Eggs bind the ingredients together, onion, garlic powder, and oregano season them. I use fresh breadcrumbs and add milk which makes for a softer texture that I like, but you can omit the milk and use dried breadcrumbs too. Just like the sauce, this is not an exact science! I also bake my meatballs rather than frying them - they contain enough fat that adding more for the purposes of frying them seems like overkill. It’s also way faster, easier, and less messy!

Italian Meatballs

Make ~ 6 dozen

Ingredients

1 lb ground beef
1 lb ground pork
1 medium onion, peeled and chopped
1/2 tsp garlic powder,
1 tsp dried oregano
Salt and pepper
2 eggs
~1 1/2 cups fresh bread crumbs
1/2 to 1 cup of milk

Directions

Preheat oven to 375º
In a large bowl mix ground meats, onion, breadcrumbs, and seasoning
Add eggs and mix again, using your hands to make sure the ingredients are evenly distributed
Add milk a little at a time, mixing between additions - the meat and breadcrumbs will absorb the liquid. Continue adding until the consistency is soft but still holds a shape.
Shape the meatballs. I like to use a #40 cookie scoop to portion the mixture so that the meatballs are a consistent size, and then I roll each pile in my hands to form a ball. This is a great activity to do with kids since it is almost like working with play-doh! Just be sure they are old enough to know not to eat the raw meat!
Bake the meatballs on a rimmed baking sheet for ~30 minutes or until they have begun to brown.
At this point they are likely cooked enough to eat, but I like to add them to the tomato sauce scraping all the browned bits off the pan into the simmering sauce along with the meatballs. This adds great flavor to the sauce.
Continue cooking in the sauce for another 30 minutes or so.

This makes about 6 dozen so plenty for the cook and random minions who followed the tantalizing aromas wafting from the kitchen to sneak a few!

Lasagna is very easy and you can vary it as much as you like - I’ve used regular lasagna noodles with curly edges and parboiled them first, but now I always buy “oven ready” lasagna noodles which can be used straight out of the package with no prep. I think all lasagna noodles can be used dry as long as you have enough liquid sauce in your assembly. It definitely saves time and mess not to have to parboil!

There is great debate about the “right” recipe for lasagna with some people insisting that authentic lasagna includes a rich creamy béchamel sauce rather than ricotta. I’ve made it that way too, but I prefer this ricotta version. It has a higher proportion of cheese and sauce and requires less pasta layers to get a substantial serving. These directions make 3 layers of pasta - if you want a higher ratio of pasta to filling, add more layers of pasta and adjust the amount in each cheese/sauce layer downward.

Janet’s Killer New Year’s Day Lasagna

Makes 12 VERY generous servings or 20 more moderate size servings

1 nine oz box plus a few extra strips from a second box of no boil lasagna (I like Barilla, flat)
4 lbs whole milk ricotta cheese
~ 2 lbs shredded mozzarella, reserve ~1/2 cup
3 eggs
2 tsp dried basil
1/2 tsp garlic powder of desired
~8 cups tomato sauce

Directions

Preheat oven to 350º
In a large bowl, mix together ricotta, eggs, basil, garlic powder, and all but the reserved 1/2 cup mozzarella until well blended.
In a deep sided lasagna pan 10” x 14” x 3”, spread 1-2 cups of tomato sauce on the bottom of the pan
Add a single layer of lasagna noodles fitting them tightly to edges of pan
Top with dollops of 1/3 of the cheese mixture and spread evenly with a spatula or the back of a spoon.
Top with 2 ladles of sauce and spread evenly over cheese layer
Add another layer of pasta and repeat the layers in the same order - pasta, cheese, sauce, pasta, cheese, sauce ending with a cheese and sauce layer.
Top the completed pan with a sprinkle of the remaining mozzarella.
Bake at 350º for ~an hour until bubbling and the top begins to brown.
Let stand 30 minutes before slicing to serve.

Serve the squares of lasagna in a pasta bowl topped with sauce and meatballs. Garnish with a bit of fresh grated Parmigiano-Reggiano.

We always accompany our lasagna fest with garlic bread (yummm) and a caesar salad because something green makes it all practically a healthy meal (okay, not really). It is definitely an indulgence and you can probably feel your arteries hardening just reading this, but it is a delicious once-in-a-great-while treat!