Crock Pot Lasagna
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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
- 1 box lasagna noodles
- 16 oz cottage cheese
- 2 lbs ground beef cooked and drained
- 2 - 26 ounce cans or jars of spaghetti sauce
- 2 cups mozzarella
Instructions
- In bowl, stir two cheeses together until well combined. Spoon a layer of sauce in bottom of crock pot. Sprinkle small amount of ground beef over top. Top with a layer of noodles, breaking to make them fit. Be sure to alternate which way the noodles go with each layer. Top noodles with a layer of cheese. Repeat process until all ingredients are used, ending with sauce.
- Cover and cook on low 6-8 hours.
Nutrition
My best friend is not Italian, as she says, with emphasis; she’s Sicilian! She advises me to never, ever use cottage cheese in lasagna; always use ricotta (and yes, even I, who am neither Italian nor Sicilian, can taste the difference). And gravy must be made from scratch (I ignore that part, since – what? I gotta grow the darn tomatoes?) – I use canned. However, I never, ever cook tomatoes without adding basil; and sauce (or gravy) needs a certain amount of Italian seasoning (no, I’m not lazy by not mixing my own; I’m efficient); and no good Sicilian (or her best friend) ever cooks without adding garlic (except maybe when cooking with chocolate!). But I’m certainly going to try lasagna in the crock, since who has time to simmer red sauce all day long?!? Thanks! 😉
This is so good. Imake it in my 13 z 9 casserole crockpot.
lol, 13 x 9
I am so glad you like it Barbara!!
I used to make this in my six quart oval slow cooker. It always turned out great and was a family favorite. About a year ago I bought one of the newer rectangular casserole slow cookers. It cooked even better and stayed moister than using the oval one. I think the casserole slow cooker is worth the cost just for this recipe! The lasagna turns out more evenly cooked, juicier, and easier to plate.
Oh wow, I have wondered about those. Thanks for sharing with us your thoughts on it!!
ANOTHER WINNER! Made this last week and was EASY + GOOD! First time I had ever made a lasagna too. Bet you could bake this same recipe too!
Made the crock pot lasagna yesterday, very good, I did season the meat some while browning, just something I always do. Thanks for a great recipe and easy!
Christy, this was a big hit at our house tonight.
I’d take a photo and tweet it, but as you know, this recipe isn’t very photogenic. 🙂
Thank you!
Do the noodles need to be cooked before putting into the crock pot if cooking on high for 3-4 hours?
Nope. They’ll do their cooking in the slow cooker 🙂