Please welcome, my favorite meal of all time. LASAGNA. This is my favorite recipe (courtesy of my mom ❤️) because it holds it’s shape, has a ton of zesty Italian flavor, and is not too overloaded with oily cheeses like most others are. I like myself a firm, saucy, meaty lasagna, not a stack of cheese grease. 🙅🏼♀️
One ingredient you may not be familiar with in this recipe is the fennel seed. I grew up without this ingredient, and the lasagna is plenty good without it, but I’ve added it in since moving out and experimenting with different spices. I’ve gotta tell you, I won’t ever leave it out moving forward. Fennel seed (ground or whole) really adds some authentic Italian sausage flare to the dish. I would keep it in my spice cabinet solely for this recipe, but I’ve also found use for it in my Tender Turkey Meatballs, Italian Sausage and Tortellini Soup, and Home-made Italian Turkey Sausage.
I’ve made the serving sizes for this lasagna pretty large. Big pieces of lasagna are my jam. 🤰🏼 But I served this recipe at a family reunion this past summer and it fed 8 adults and 6 kids alongside some baked broccoli and home made breadsticks. We even had a second tray of lasagna that wasn’t touched.
My point: it feeds a lot of people.
Whenever I’m making a batch of freezer meals, either for myself or for a friend, I almost always include a lasagna. It’s a little more legwork on the front end compared to the rest of my freezer meals because you have to cook the meat; but when you’re having an incredibly busy week, are chronically ill, pregnant, freshly postpartum, or mourning a loss, having a huge, comforting lasagna to eat off of for a few days is a total life saver. This lasagna has helped heal and comfort many of my family and friends.
My mom’s lasagna is a recipe that I have a legitimate(ly weird) emotional attachment to because of all of the good memories I’ve associated with it and all the love I’ve felt preparing and sharing it with others. In fact, I’ve even put off sharing this recipe on the blog because I didn’t know how to do it justice. How could I fit all the comfy fuzzy feelings I feel when making this lasagna into words? I can’t. It’s just one of those things that allows my entire being to be consumed by nostalgia, but traps the right words on the tip of my tongue. 🤷🏼♀️ Maybe you have an inanimate object or experience that makes you feel the same.
I truly hope you find a way to share your love with your family and friends through making and sharing some seriously tasty food with them. Invite them over and make them a lasagna, then send them home with one for the freezer. After all, I feel like lasagna may be the one truly universal love language. ❤️