Now this classic also adopts a few cheats that cut prep time and features a few products from one of my favorite stores, Trader Joes (TJs). You can say that is one part of this secret recipe. As for ‘cheats’ 1) the sauce is not from scratch its doctored and 2) the noodles are the TJs ready to bake ones. And thats it, cutting corners but not flavor and adding nutrients wherever I can. And if you buy everything at Trader Joes it costs $40 and that includes a $10 bottle of Chianti. Let’s begin.

You start with the sauce, it takes the longest as it needs to reduce. The longer it cooks the more flavor it has. The sauce starts with the protein. Remove the casing from the sausage and mix with the turkey until combined. Start sautéing the onion, when translucent toss the hunk of meat in, start browning and add both salt/pepper. Make sure to mince it to small pieces (if its too big it will mess with the layering of the noodles).

Once the meat is almost brown but broken up well, add about 1/2 cup of any one of the sauces (you are adding all of both so it doesn’t matter where you start), combine well while still breaking apart the meat. Add the rest of the sauce along with the spices, stir well, and bring to a boil. Once boiled add the spinach or broccoli allowing it to cook off any remaining liquid. Then reduce the heat to low, add the bay leaf and let reduce for 1-2 hours stirring occasionally. You want most of the liquid to cook off, you may need to add 2 tbs of tomato paste if the sauce seems too watery. If the sauce is watery, the lasagna will fall apart and be sad and ugly.

Preheat oven to 375.

Once the sauce is sauced, remove it from the stove. If you have the time, let it sit for 30 minutes, it will continue to reduce and thicken up.

Now we assemble, pour 1-2 cups of sauce at the bottom and spread around. The noodles are a puzzle, configure them until they completely cover the bottom. It’s ok if they overlap a bit and you may need to break some pieces to get the corners.

Now the layering begins, the key for the base of the noodles is you hope there was enough sauce that they ‘stick’ so they don’t go too wild when you spread the Ricotta. Take 1/2 the Ricotta and spread it until you get an even-ish layer- its not science its cooking so don’t overthink it. Once that is set, you add a layer of both cheeses, then more sauce, then noodle time, then the rest of the Ricotta, then cheeses, then the rest of the sauce. This is the final layer (only 2 total noodle layers). Once you pour the rest of the sauce, you do another layer of each cheese (not the Ricotta as that is gone in the main layers).

Bake covered for 30 minutes and uncovered for 30-40 minutes until the cheese looks like below. You MUST let this sit for 10-15 minutes before serving (15-20 is better). This step allows the cheese to form up so you get beautiful slices when serving.

All in all, the taste is supreme.

Let’s dive into the nutrition shall we? And, you can always cut more carbs by using eggplant versus noodles.

The sauce: 900 calories, 60g sugar, 100g carbs, 60g fat, 24g protein

The cheese:
Mozzarella 540 calories, 0g sugar/carbs, 24g fat, 60g protein
Ricotta 480 calories, 16g sugar, 36g fat, 32g protein
Parm 880 calories, 0g sugar/carbs, 64g fat, 72g protein

Noodles: 5 per layer, totaling with two layers = 10 pieces, totaling to 700 calories, 130 carbs, 20g fat, 28g protein

Meat:
Sausage 330 calories, 3g sugar, 10g fat, 51g protein
Turkey 330 calories, 0g sugar/carbs, 19g fat, 40g protein

In total this dish clocks in at: 4,160 calories, 80g sugar, 240 carbs, 233g fat, and 307g protein

I had 12 servings so each piece was 346 calories, 7g sugar, 20g carbs, 19g fat, and 26g protein

How does this compare to the traditional frozen lasagna? Looking at a few popular brands, here is how we do: 400-500 calories, 8-10g sugar, 40-50g carbs, 16-20g fat, and 22g protein