Crock Pot Lasagna – It’s Italian, y’all!
I love how my grandmother says Italian. God love her, she has never known how to pronounce that word. Instead, it comes out “Eye-talian”, as in “That Eye-talian food sure is good!”.
Well, this is one of my Eye-talian recipes. It’s very easy (you don’t even boil the noodles!), especially when you have your meat already browned and in the freezer just waiting to be tossed in. This is also my most requested recipe. I don’t know how many times I’ve printed this one out over the years.
It yields the most delicious lasagna I have ever tasted, rich with cheeses and meat. Beware though, it feeds a crowd! Even with a family of four, this is easily two meals.
You’ll need: Spaghetti sauce, Mozzarella cheese, Cottage cheese, lasagna noodles, and ground beef.
You don’t have to get oven ready lasagna noodles, just regular ones work great with this recipe.
I always use store bought spaghetti sauce, always. My mother says “Those companies spent years and years and put thousands of dollars into developing the perfect sauce, who are we not to use it?”. That’s wisdom if I ever did hear it!
You can use browned italian sausage if you wanna be fancy here, but you have to call it Eye-talian sausage, that’s m’rule. ~grins~
And a layer of noodles. Notice how my first layer of noodles went in a different direction of this layer. You should always do that with your noodles when you make lasagna, criss cross your layers. One this way, the other that way. This helps your lasagna hold its shape and look prettier when you cut it. However, at no point in this post have I said this lasagna was going to be pretty. I said it was going to be good.
Crock Pot lasagna won’t come out in a perfect square but it will still look great, not that anyone is going to notice because they are going to start scarfing it down as soon as it hits their plate. Therefore, don’t serve this if the queen comes to dinner because it brings out the worst table manners.
Now, hopefully you’ve noticed a pattern here because I want you to repeat with another layer of cheese, sauce, beef, repeating until you have just enough sauce left to cover the top. We want to end in sauce.
Cook on low for six to eight hours. *Anytime you cook in a crock pot, cooking on low will have it done in 6-8 hours and cooking on high will have it done in 3-4. That is always the rule and it always works because I said so.
So anytime you see a recipe that has you cooking on low 6-8, just cut that time in half if you cook it on high. Any recipe which says to cook on low can be cooked on high – because I said so.
Fail miserably in taking the final picture because you are hungry and just want to eat…
Ingredients Instructions
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Posted by Christy Jordan
on Aug 14 2008. Filed under Crock Pot, Main Course.
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Oh, my! I can’t wait for this one; I’m making it this weekend for sure! I’m so glad I found this blog!!
Christy… I’m on it! You can trust me! Me and my crock pot will do this one justice.. I’ll just toss some Texas Toast in the oven… and the Eye-Talian food will be on the table!
You are funny!
OH YUM!!! And it is easy!!! Terri and I LOVE the crockpot!
I will definately be giving this one a try!!!!
Treva
Yummy! I will be trying this for sure! Love this blog:)
LOL! Have y’all noticed that everyone who has commented so far on this has names starting with “T”?
Tammy: Thank you so much! I am glad YOU found this blog! Let me know how it turns out!
Terri: I knew I could count on you! ~winks and grins~ I hope you like it as much as we do! You DO get bonus points for pronouncing Eye-Talian correctly, by the way!
Treva- You got a pic! YAY! I have a few more crock pot recipes I’m gonna put up just for you and Terri! Stay tuned!
Tracee: I love that you read this blog!!! Thank you so much and let me know how it turns out! Appreciate you commenting!!
@}~~I LOVE COMMENTS! ~~{@
My daughter and family are coming in this weekend for a late Christmas get together. I think I’ll fix this for the night the come in. How many will it serve? Should I double the recipe?
It will serve about 6-8 adults, not sure how many you have coming in but this does make a good bit.
OMG rolling on the floor laughing because I said SO !LOL I love this recipe i am doing it.
I had a few meals delivered from friends this week but after that I will try it for sure! I even have the ingredients!
Oh and I use sausage instead of hamburger! (: woohoo!
Fabulous!!
Our house has been so hot, I’ve decided not to use the oven AT ALL! So that meant no lasagne. BUt not now! I’m trying this today!
Thanks.
Yesterday we did pizza on the grill! That was great too, and no hot oven!
Pinky: I have been worried about you! It just occurred to me yesterday that I had not seen you around in a while and now you comment! YAY! PINKY LIVES!!!
Hehe!
Ooh, you’re getting fancy – SAUSAGE!! Keep in mind I am close enough to actually show up and swipe some of that !
Christy
MaryLu – YAY! YOU LIKE IT!!! I know just what you mean about heat outside and the oven. I have actually seriously slowed down on biscuits and hoe cake just because I have to get the oven so dern hot to make them! Oh lord, there is no cooking season like the winter time!!
Christy
I made this and it was AWFUL! the noodles were like mush. We could have taken our false teeth out (if we them) and eaten this. What went wrong?
Honey, I’m sorry it didn’t turn out for you, sounds like it cooked too long. I’m just trying to get over reading your comment right now….you really should write a blog. As I was reading I couldn’t help but have a mental image while following your sentence…
Thanks Christy for the advice, I don’t think my family will let me try this recipe again though, they said I was really off my game that night. I will however try another one of your recipes real soon. I will let you know how that one turns out. I truly enjoy reading all your stories about your family. I would really like to start a blog but not sure how to do that. Have a great Thankgiving!
hey Lisa!
You know, I started off the easy way, just go to blogger.com. It is completely free and you can kind of get your feet wet with no commitment. I found that the more I got into it, it was kind of like a stepping stone to prepare me for the next phase, which was moving to what SouthernPlate.com is now.
Hope you have a great Thanksgiving too and so glad to have you as part of the Family!
Gratefully,
Christy
Sorry Christy my son fell out of a second story window. He was pretty injured and is now on the mend.
My mother says eye-talian too!
Pinky: I am so sorry to hear that! Thank goodness he is okay!! I bet your heart stopped. Get better soon pinky’s boy!!!
Anonymous: I like your Mama already! Welcome to Southern Plate!
What should it be??? Lasagna???
Sorry but it’s a completely different recipe. Anyway…hope it’s good.
I am personally grateful that there are so many variations on recipes, where would food be without variety?????
What if a casserole had to follow one particular recipe to be a casserole? What if a cake had to follow one particular recipe to be a cake or have only one type of icing?
Of course this is lasagna, silly! LOL If its different from your recipe then that is GREAT!!! We can have your recipe, then my recipe, then my mothers, then our neighbors, and have four entirely different meals! I think its wonderful!!
I like my recipe, but I bet I’d like yours as well!
This lasagna sounds great, and the convience of the cock pot to is even better. I will be making this, this weekend…!
I LOVE LOVE LOVE Southern plate!!! I am so happy I found this blog. I actually have this recipe in my crock pot now and am very anxious to give it a try. I did substitute the cottage with ricotta and put eye-talian seasoning on my beef as I fried it up. I am so glad you shared this recipe with us!!!
My seven year old daughter and I made this before we left for Christmas Eve service at church. All three of my girls devoured it and asked for seconds. I will NEVER make normal lasagna again.
So I made this last week and used ricotta instead of the cottage cheese, browned my 4 lbs of meat with my onions and about 20 garlic cloves (if you couldn’t tell, i probably have the largest pieces of cookware imaginable) and threw it in to my giant crock and said bon appetite…. it usually takes me foreverrrrr to make my wonderful lasagna, but this was awesome!!!
I made this today. Very easy to put together. I added some fresh garlic and a smidge of melted butter to the cheese mixture and used our favorite sauce- Paul Newman Marinara; all beef, no sausage, and Kraft 5-cheese Italian blend. The finished product reminded me very much of Chef Boyardee lasagna (my daughter agreed.. her and I are the only ones who’ve eaten CB), but better. Tasty! I cooked it for 6 hours on low, but the pasta was a bit softer than I like.. I think next time I’ll shorten the cooking time.
[...] here’s the recipe: crock pot lasagna by southernplate.com [...]
Made it this morning. Cant wait to try it this afternoon!
Yumm, looks good. I love an authentic lasagne, but there are so many variations, and since I love cheese and tomatoes with pasta, it’s all good
Newbie to your site & loooove it! I just tried this last night & it’s soooo good! Even better the next day (eating this for lunch @ work as I type!).
I made it, but my bottom got burnt and stuck… How do I fix that?
Heather, it could be your crockpot. The crockpots made in the last several years cook at a higher temperature than the older ones. I hate my crockpot because of that. I totally ruined a beautiful pot of corned beef and cabbage the first time I used my crockpot. Try doing the lasagna again only cook it for a shorter period of time! By the way, I always spray a little vegetable oil in my crockpot before I put anything into it. Hope my suggestions help!
cook on low, add more sauce to the bottom layer, spray the crock before adding ingredients.
Also, do not stick your bottom IN the crockpot.
hehe
Sage advice! Heehee
Good Moringing Christy,
I have just layered up my crock pot with all the yummy goodness lasagna has to offer. It has been so hot here in Florida that this will be a welcome change for dinner with has consisted mostly of grilled meat and quick cooking veggies, to our cold sandwiches because it’s just to darn hot to be in the kitchen cooking.
Happy Day Bountiful,
Cherrill
I am SO making this Thursday night!!
LOVE when you don’t have to precook the noodles. I have a crock pot mac and cheese recipe with no cook noodles that was a go to when my boys were younger.
Now we are in the throes of end of season football here for middle school and lower school and my children need MEAT, red meat to be specific, after killer practices and games
My big boy’s team is playing their first playoff game Thursday….GO Mustangs!
And I am going to try and come to your book signing in ATL next Monday. Live right around the corner and will try to break away from Mommy duty to meet you!
[...] Slow Cooker Lasagna [...]
Making this again today, cant wait for dinner time!
I found this yesterday and we made it today….cant wait to try it tonight! It smellllssss soo good! Thanks
I’m new to Southern Plate and this is my first recipe to try… it’s in my slow cooker at home as we speak and I CAN’T WAIT to get home and try it… Lasagna is something I have never made because when you are working girl, it took too long to have dinner on the table in a decent time. Now I can walk in at 5:30 and have the table set and food piping hot in minutes. It’s like having my cake and eating it too!!! Thank you for slow cooker (crock pot, hehe) recipes! Please give us more!
Christy, I was wondering with all the delicious recipes you make, do you have a set schedule of recipes you do for your family? Example, Mondays: meatloaf, Tuesdays, . . . ., etc. and how often do you repeat recipes?
It was cute how you called it “normal” for people who add onions and green peppers. I am one of those “normal” people; however, my husband, and now my daughter, both cannot eat onions and peppers – how sad! It just doesn’t agree with them. They both love peppers, onions (and garlic), but now they get different symptoms so cannot eat them!
Do you have any recipes you could recommend without those added? .S. Have heard of the Mason-Dixon line for many years, but what exactly is it? Thanks.
[...] Caler Ur Crock Pot Lasagna.. it was the bomb !!! my family and i loved it.. it was awesome.. I will never make Lasagna again [...]
Do you think this technique could work with spaghetti?
Could you take the cottage cheese if you don’t like it and it still taste good? I really hate cottage cheese.
I don’t like cottage cheese either. I promise you won’t be able to tell that it is in there.
You know, I don’t like it myself! lol Neither does anyone in my family. It melts beautifully so we just keep quiet about it
Hey Christy-
I was wondering if you could substitute 16 ounces of ricotta cheese for the cottage cheese? Don’t like cottage cheese, either! I know that they seem similar but I always use ricotta in my baked ziti or lasagna. I’ve seen many baked Italian recipes that call for cottage cheese and always wondered if they were interchangeable.
Thanks for all your great recipes<3<3
That would work great and thank you!!
I made this over the weekend and it was marvelous!! It heats up well as leftovers too. I think when I make it again, I will use more sauce I made my lasagna the night before and it was in the fridge for a good 8 hours before I put it on to cook, I think that soaked up a lot of sauce. Thanks for a great recipe!
Made this for the first time today. Tastes good but the texture is like baby food. If I make this again, I will cook it for far less than 8 hours on low. Don’t mean to be negative, just wanted to tell my experience. I love your positive outlook, Christy!
Hello,
I was just wondering if you could cut this in recipe in half..It’s just me, my husband, and our six year okd so I don’t need this much, even with leftovers I think it would be waaayy too much. If you cut in half do you use the same cooking time?
You sure can cut it in half Jessica but I would leave the cooking time.
Just finished putting this one in the crockpot for supper tonight! I can’t wait to try it!!! Super excited!
Can I cook this on high for a shorter time? I made this before on low and it was great but need this to be cooked in a faster time frame for a lunch!! thanks!!
Christy, took this to church today for dinner! Got rave reviews. This is a keeper. Thanks for your website!
[...] and it is my “go to” when I need a recipe to cook. One of our family favorites is your Crock Pot Lasagna. The first time I made it all I had was the “oven ready” noodles. Tried them and it [...]
I was wondering that too Katie. Can this be cooked on high for 3 or 4 hours?
I Started this about an hour ago and put it on high, but after reading these posts I turned it down to low
This was a big hit! They cleaned out the whole crockpot! I started on high for 2 hours then turned it on low for 3 more hours and it was delicious! A little crispy around the edges but other than that it worked out great.
I actually plan on making lasagna this week…so i guess instead of two pans of regular lasagna, i’m going to have one regular and one in the crockpot…cause i’m all about trying this recipe!!!! (I got a household of 9, so any recipes you got that can feed an army……please post them!! LOL)
Do you cook the noodles before putting then in the crock pot?
Can you say delicious-o? Very easy to make but much more enjoyable to eat!!
I am so glad to hear that you liked it!
My sister in law turned me on to your site. Cooked one recipe last night and making this tonight for my 42 birthday dinner!! I make my own sauce, never used jarred sauce (not knocking it). I will let you know how it turns out!!
Happy Birthday Michele and welcome to Southern Plate!!! I hope the recipe turns out great for you, can’t wait to hear.
Making this tomorrow
. Got me so hungry if it wasn’t midnight I make it now lol.
LOL, I hope you enjoy it Dawn!!