Heart Lasagna
Tue, Feb 7, 2012
Around the World, Chicken & Turkey, Europe, Foodgawker, Fun Family Activities, Holidays, Italy, Itsy Bitsy Foodies Sightings, Main Dishes, Photograzing, Playing with Food, Search by Course, Valentine's Day
(+3 rating, 2 votes)
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This lasagna is a hearty, comforting meal that is perfect for a special Valentine’s Day dinner. It’s easy to do by simply cutting heart shapes out of the cooked lasagna noodles. It’s also a pretty mess-free cooking project for your kids. My three-year old son loved helping me cut out the shapes! I used my Grandma’s lasagna recipe with a few minor tweaks and then we used heart cookie cutters to cut the hearts out of the cooked lasagna noodles. With the heart cut-outs we made individual heart lasagna that would actually make cute little appetizers.
- 1 large can of tomatoes
- 1 12-ounce can of tomato paste
- 1 tsp salt, to taste
- 2 tsp oregano
- ¼ tsp black pepper
- 1 yellow onion, chopped
- 2 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 pound ground beef or chicken sausage
- ½ pound whole wheat lasagna noodles
- ¾ pound {or less} ricotta cheese
- ½ pound mozzarella cheese, grated
- ½ cup grated or powdered cheese
- Sauté the onions and the garlic in a little bit of oil.
- Remove the onion and garlic from the pan and add the ground beef or chicken sausage to the pan.
- Brown the meat over medium heat until it is fully cooked.
- Combine the canned tomatoes, cooked onion and cooked garlic in a blender and blend until the sauce is smooth.
- Pour the blended sauce into a large sauce pan and add the tomato paste, ¼ cup parmesan cheese and the seasonings.
- Simmer the sauce uncovered for 5-10 minutes.
- Then add the browned meat and let the sauce simmer for 2½ hours.
- Cook the lasagna noodles and drain them in a colander.
- In a 9×13 pan, layer the ingredients as follows:
- About ⅓ of the sauce
- About ½ of the cooked noodles, to cover the area of the pan in one layer
- Half of the ricotta cheese or just spread a little bit of ricotta over the noodles
- Roughly ⅓ of the mozzarella cheese or enough to generously cover the ricotta
- Roughly 1 Tbsp of parmesan cheese or enough sprinkled to cover the mozzarella
- Repeat the layers ending with the sauce.
- Cut heart shapes out of the remaining lasagna noodles using cookie cutters.
- Arrange the noodles on top of the sauce.
- Sprinkle ⅓ of the mozzarella cheese and the remaining parmesan cheese on top of the noodles, leaving the heart cut-outs open so that the red sauce shows through.
- Cover the lasagna with foil and bake it at 350 degrees for 20-30 minutes or until it is bubbly and lightly browned.
- You can assemble mini heart lasagna using the lasagna noodle heart cut outs, the remaining ingredients and a mozzarella cheese heart, baking them in individual ramekins.
So pretty!
Thanks, Valerie!
This lasagna recipe was emailed to me by my girlfriend. Can you please add me to your listing to receive future recipes etc. Thanks so much
Gosh, so cute!!
This is SO cute! I just added it to my list of ‘Heart Shaped Food Ideas to Love’ for Valentine’s Day. What a great dinner for the 14th or any day. 🙂
http://www.skinnyscoop.com/list/citychic/valentine-food-ideas
Renate, Thank you for your interest. Unfortunately, at this time I don’t have an e-mail mailing list. You can subscribe for the RSS Feed and follow me on Twitter, Pinterest and Facebook. I hope to have an e-mail subscription sometime in the near future!