The Power of Love--Love of Lasagna!

About author / Christine Gable

Culinary enthusiast; kids cuisine and slow cooking; magazine recipe developer; professional writer. Her simple recipes are great for family dinners.

Lasagna is one of those dishes that everyone in our family loves—but doesn’t love to make. Why is it that lasagna just seems to take forever to finish! Boiling the noodles, browning the beef, layering the levels of noodles, ricotta and sauce … oh, when does it end? And then it still has to bake! Gosh, no wonder I don’t make it very often.

But we do so love lasagna. Yet after one or two times of having given helping hands with the mixing and layering, it seems everyone around here has had much better things to do than help make lasagna. What if there was an easier and quicker way to make it in the crockpot?

Just the other day when I was at a discount grocery store it set my creative thinking wheels in motion when I found a box of lasagna noodles and a container of ricotta cheese in the refrigerated section. Jackpot, for sure! I was already thinking of ways to make a slow cooked dinner of lasagna … surely this was a do-able endeavor in the crockpot?

After all, I do like puttering around in the kitchen. In fact, most of the time, when I’m not under pressure, it’s something that centers and balances me. Is that unusual? Aren’t most folks looking to get out of the kitchen—to go to a restaurant or have someone else do the cooking? Well, I certainly enjoy that also. But I’ve discovered that, in general, puttering around and cooking this and baking that make me feel good. And when I feel good, the household runs better and smoother. Plus I get to share my discoveries and results with you! What luck, eh?!

Yet even better is when I get to delight in the smells of my work (but not break a sweat) all afternoon. Strike that up to one of the hidden benefits of working from home AND getting to create crockpot recipes. Not to mention that I can work right up til 5:00 and know that all we have to do is grab plates and utensils and dig in.

I have to tell you, after several crockpot dinners of lasagna, it is indeed do-able! The key is to use lots of sauce, and to add some water to it. That means the lasagna noodles will cook nice and slowly and evenly.

The only caveat is that you don’t want to leave it in the slow cooker too long. It’ll do best at 4 hours or less—otherwise the pasta will get too well done—and I don’t know about you, but I like pasta best when it’s not soggy and overcooked.

Another thing to beware of: know your slow cooker’s cooking temps—does your medium setting really put out the heat like mine? If so, you’ll want to set it on the lowest possible setting, otherwise this baby will be boiling in an hour and overcooked in no time. Since my slow cooker is pretty new, it’s like a blast furnace compared to my old one … that one could sit on high for 8 hours and the pasta might still be underdone. No can do now—and that’s also the reason why slow cooker recipes have the 2-3 hour time variance.

Depending upon your power settings and your window of time, many crockpot recipes are very forgiving. This one is less so—know that you don’t wanna work overtime when this is waiting at home for dinner.

Serves/Makes: 8

• 1 pound ground beef (optional, may make without it for vegetarian version)
• 1 tablespoon dried minced onion
• 3 jars (26 ounce size) spaghetti sauce
• 3 cups water
• 1 medium zucchini, sliced thinly
• 16 lasagna noodles
• 1 cup Parmesan cheese

***Cheese filling***

• 2 containers (15 ounce size) ricotta cheese
• 1 egg
• 1/2 teaspoon oregano
• 1/2 teaspoon basil