Sunday, January 22, 2012

Crockpot Lasagna

Please tell me I’m not the only one who had no clue that lasagna could be made in a crockpot.  Anyone else? 

Not that it really would have mattered because I’ve only owned a crockpot for maybe a month or two.  It’s my new favorite kitchen appliance!  Who knew a simple crockpot could make dinner so simple?  Obviously not me or I would have bought one a looong time ago. 

When I heard that lasagna could be made in my new handy dandy kitchen device, I was elated.  Plus to hear that you don’t even have to cook the noodles ahead of time made me even more excited.  Maybe I was a bit skeptical thinking that the noodles wouldn’t turn out but guess what, they did!

I didn’t follow an exact recipe, I just made it the way that I normally do… simple but delicious!

lasagna 3 

You’ll need:

  • 1 – 1 lb. package lasagna noodles
  • 1 pound ground turkey or ground beef (I prefer turkey)
  • cottage cheese or ricotta cheese (I had cottage on hand so we used that.)
  • 1-2 jars of spaghetti sauce (I use traditional Prego)
  • mozzarella cheese 
  • spinach (optional)
  • diced onion (optional)

Brown ground turkey or beef along with diced onion (optional).  Start by spraying inside of crockpot with non-stick spray.  I don’t know if it’s a necessity but I did it just in case.

Place just a tiny bit of sauce on the bottom of crockpot and spread it around.  Now place a layer of noodles, breaking them as needed to fit.  It doesn’t have to be pretty.  Spread a layer of cottage (or ricotta) cheese, spinach, meat, a sprinkle of mozzarella cheese, sauce.  Repeat over and over until the noodles are gone.  We like our lasagna saucy so we used a lot more than 1 jar of sauce.

lasagna 

On the last layer of noodles, put a thin layer of sauce and a heavier layer of mozzarella.  There you have it!  Put the lid on your crockpot and set it on high for up to 4 hours.  Ours was done after about 3 1/2 hours.

lasagna 2 

Your crockpot may be a different size and/or shape than mine so you may have to modify for that. 

This fed eight people (3 adults, 5 kids) and we still had leftovers for 3-4 more servings. 

5 comments:

Jenn said...

I didn't know you could cook lasagna in the crockpot either? So, you don't even have to cook the noodles? Did you use the no-boil noodles or just regular? This is a must try! You should come and enter my cookbook giveaway! http://eatcakefordinner.blogspot.com/2012/01/rush-hour-recipes-review-and-cookbook.html

Brooke said...

I just used plain ol' noodles. I know there is such a thing as 'oven ready' noodles but I just used regular ones. And they turned out GREAT! We all loved it! I'll definitely be over to enter your giveaway.

bj_mAMA said...

YUMMO! I LOVE Crockpot Cookin'! Thanks for sharing this!

Alyssabeths said...

Oh my this looks so good. I'll have to try this coming weekend.

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Beth

http://alyssabeth1.blogspot.com/

Angie Hastings said...

I made this for dinner yesterday. It was so nice that I could go to school and when I got home dinner was ready. The whole family loved it. Thanks for the recipe.

P.S. I didn't know you could do lasagna in the crock pot either and was even more excited that I didn't have to cook the noodles first.

~Angie