How to Freeze Lasagna
This is how you do it.
When I was coming up for meals to make for my frozen week I did a lot of research on what types of dishes freeze well.
Lasagna came up on almost every google search and forum that I read as the best frozen meal.
The problem was that everyone had a different opinion about how to freeze lasagna correctly. Some said you shouldn’t freeze meat versions, some said you should freeze the lasagna before cooking it, some after.
I compiled all of this info in my noggin and came up with a great lasagna recipe that freezes very well. Also, I’m pretty sure that I came up with the best way to freeze the lasagna. Feel free to debate if you want, but I’m pretty sure I nailed it.
Mushroom, Beef, and Sausage Lasagna
Yield: Serves 6-8.
Prep Time:
Total Time:
Ingredients:
1 pound ground beef
1 pound spicy Italian sausage
8 ounces crimini mushrooms, sliced thin
1/2 onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 28-ounce can tomato sauce
1/4 cup tomato paste
1/2 cup fresh basil, chopped
1/2 cup fresh parsley, chopped
24 ounces cottage cheese
2 large eggs
1 pound mozzarella cheese, grated
1 cup Parmesan cheese, grated
1 package (10-12 ounces) lasagna noodles
Salt and pepper
Olive oil
Directions:
1) Add a good drizzle of olive oil (2 tablespoons) to a large, high walled skillet or pan over medium heat. Once the oil is hot, add the mushrooms, onions, and garlic along with a pinch of salt. Cook until mushrooms soften, about 5 minutes.
2) Remove veggies and add ground beef and sausage to the pan. Cook until the meat is cooked through, about 10 minutes. Tilt pan and spoon out most of the fat that has collected. Then stir veggies back into pan.
3) Add tomato sauce and paste to the pan and stir to combine. Simmer for about 20 minutes.
4) Add half of the fresh basil and parsley to the filling and turn off the heat.
5) In a separate bowl, combine cottage cheese, eggs, and remainder of fresh herbs.
6) Cook noodles according to package in heavily salted water with about 1 tablespoon of olive oil added in.
7) In a large baking dish or lasagna pan, add a layer of noodles followed by half of the meat filling. Top with half of the cottage cheese mixture, then half of the mozzarella and parmesan cheese.
8) Top with another layer of noodles, then the last of the cottage cheese mixture, then the rest of the meat filling. Top the whole dish with the remainder of the grated cheeses.
9) Bake the lasagna at 350 for 30-40 minutes until it's hot in the center.
10) Serve immediately.
11) TO freeze, let lasagna cool to room temperature then transfer to fridge to cool and solidify.
12) Slice lasagna into individual servings and remove them from the pan. They should stay perfectly together if they are cold.
13) Wrap each serving in plastic wrap and then store all the individual servings in freezer safe plastic bags.
14) To reheat, microwave frozen lasagna on high for 4-5 minutes.
Making Lasagna
I didn’t really understand why a meat version wouldn’t freeze just fine and it turns out I was right. This version contains meat and it freezes just fine, but if you wanted to make a vegetarian version, it would also freeze well. If I were going to make a veggie version of this lasagna, I would double or triple the mushrooms and add in some crumbled tempeh or tofu along with some spices like cumin and red pepper flakes to make up for the spice that would be in the sausage.
Assuming you are making the above recipe though, start by adding a good drizzle of oil to a high-walled pan (or use a pot). Get your pan hot over medium heat and then add the mushrooms, onions, and garlic.
Cook these until they are soft, about 6 minutes.
Love mushrooms in lasagna.
Once the veggies are cooked, remove them from the pan and add the beef and sausage. Cook those things until they are well-browned and cooked through. If there’s a lot of fat in your pan at this point, spoon out as much of it as you can.
Then stir the veggies back in along with the tomato sauce and paste.
Fantastic filling.
Stir this all together and let it simmer for about 20 minutes, then kill the heat and season the filling with salt, pepper, and half of the fresh herbs in the recipe.
Besides the meat filling, you need to make the creamy half of the filling.
Normally, this is ricotta cheese, but I used cottage cheese for this version and loved the result. Just stir the cottage cheese together with the eggs and the rest of the fresh herbs.
Yep. Cottage cheese.
Obviously, you’ll also need some lasagna noodles.
Just cook yours according to the package. Make sure to salt your cooking water well (1 tablespoon kosher salt per gallon of water) and also add a drizzle of olive oil to the water to keep the noodles from sticking together.
You'll need some noodles!
There’s no real right way to stack all these things into a large baking dish, but this is the order I did:
Layer of noodles –> Layer of 1/2 the meat filling –> Layer of 1/2 the cottage cheese mixture –> Half the mozzarella and Parm –> Another layer of noodles –> The rest of the cottage cheese mixture –> The rest of the meat mixture –> Top everything with the rest of the mozzarella and Parmesan.
Get it?
If you build it...
You’ll be left with this beautifully thick baked casserole that’s ready for the oven!
Ready to bake!
Bake this whole thing at 350 degrees for 30-40 minutes until the middle is bubbling and hot and the edges are nice and browned.
This is one big dish of delicious.
Eat it and freeze it.
Freezing the Lasagna
Some people advocated for freezing the lasagna before you cooked it. This makes approximately zero sense to me.
You just spend all this time making a lasagna. Why wouldn’t you want to eat it immediately?
So bake the thing, eat it, and then deal with the leftovers.
What I don’t recommend doing is freezing the lasagna in one big chunk. You’ll have a heck of a time getting it thawed and cooked correctly.
Instead, let the lasagna cool to room temperature for an hour or so and then store the lasagna in your fridge overnight. As the lasagna chills, it will solidify and make it really easy to cut.
Once the lasagna is cool, just chop it into individual servings. This recipe will get you about 8-10 large servings of lasagna so even if you ate some, you should have a bunch of servings to freeze.
Easy to chop when cold.
Then wrap each serving in plastic wrap. Make sure it’s wrapped very tightly.
Wrapped.
Then store all the individual lasagna pieces in a large freezer-safe plastic bag.
These will freeze beautifully and be very easy to thaw.
Double wrapped.
Reheating the Lasagna
The best way to reheat this lasagna is in the microwave, honestly. Just cook it on high for 4-5 minutes and it’ll be perfect. This might sound strange but I actually thought the frozen and reheated lasagna was better than it was on day one.
Maybe that’s just my pain meds talking though!
I can’t think of a lasagna recipe that this freezing method wouldn’t work for. Give it a shot the next time you need to stock up on frozen meals!
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This is how I’ve always frozen lasagna and you’re right, it’s perfect every time! I have two little kids and one large piece is generally enough for them to have for dinner, which is so convenient for me.
I do have to call you out on the cottage cheese, though–that’s just wrong!
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September replied: — March 21st, 2012 @ 7:22 am
Oh, and the best wrap by far for this is the press ‘n seal stuff.
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Nick replied: — March 21st, 2012 @ 7:57 am
Try the cottage cheese. It’s shockingly good. I was a sceptic, but it was very delicious.
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Bethany replied: — March 21st, 2012 @ 10:21 am
I sub cottage cheese for ricotta frequently! They are both great.
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Sal replied: — April 19th, 2013 @ 3:12 pm
I always use cottage cheese because it has less calories and tastes great.
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You will probably spark an intense debate on the cottage vs. ricotta cheese issue. I am firmly in the cottage cheese camp, though. I grew up on lasagna made with cottage cheese. I know the ricotta cheese is the “real” way to go, but it kinda overpowers the dish a bit to me. I also like that you can sub low-fat cottage cheese w/o giving up any discernable taste quality.
September—I totally agree with you on Press and Seal though! I have found a million uses for the stuff!
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Nick replied: — March 21st, 2012 @ 7:57 am
Yea… I like both versions, but I was shocked at how much I liked the cottage cheese version. Really good.
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I always use cottage cheese too, because my husband can’t stand ricotta cheese. I’ll be darned if I’m gonna work to make a lasagna for him to turn his nose up at it, so cottage cheese it is.
As for the freezing the lasagna before cooking it, I think that’s more for the people who make up several pans at once (like my grandma). She freezes them unbaked, and then she can deliver them to neighbors in need of comfort and such. :-) I usually put it in the fridge overnight, cut it into squares, and then freeze it. Maybe not quite as easy to use as your version, but I hate plastic wrap. And it’s not too hard to pop out the frozen squares.
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Nick replied: — March 21st, 2012 @ 7:56 am
Great points. I can see how it makes sense to freeze them before cooking if you are giving them away or making a bunch at once.
Awesome tip on freezing them whole. I never thought to cut them up before freezing them so when I did it I just had a frozen block that was pretty impossible to work with. Thanks for the comment as always!
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Agree that the Glad Press and Seal works much better than Saran Wrap. Anytime I freeze stuff I use it now.
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I do not doubt the frozen could have tasted better. I think if you use a recipe that starts, with raw noodles you will have the flavor go through the pasta without freezing and re heating. Just mix you favorite jarred sauce with rue cooked meat a new raw veggies and spices. Skips two steps, cooking the pasta and sUtingg veggies and tastes better. Just check out any no boil lasagne recipe for a n idea of ratio of sauce to raw pasta and still make your own recipe in essence.
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jen replied: — March 21st, 2012 @ 10:27 am
Ps..still use thesame spices. The Jared sauce is not spicy enough withit getting absorbed by the pasta
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My brother hates ricotta so I can see the cottage cheese as something he would like (and I have a secrete love of cottage cheese anyway). I will say a few months ago I finally bought a foodsaver. Best thing I have ever done. Makes freezing stuff super easy :)
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Never boil lasagne before putting it in the dish! The job of a good bechamel is to do that nasty, fiddly work for you.
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My mother-in-law has always made lasagna with cottage cheese because one of her kids hates ricotta. The first time I had her lasagna, back when my husband and I were first dating, I was instantly hooked. I started using cottage cheese whenever I make lasagna, and I’ve never looked back. So delicious!
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I am definatley going to try the cottage cheese option. I also freeze my lasange like that and it comes out just great! I add a layer of butternut or sweet potato in my mince lasanga which makes a nice change which I lust loved. Going to try it this weekend with the cottage cheese though.
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This looks like the perfect recipe and the perfect freezing method. We are expecting a baby in a few months and I want to make sure there are enough meals for the new dad (the hospital stay for moms is longer in Belgium) and also so we have enough for the first week or two after we get home. This is definitely going on my list!!! Thank you so much for posting this and hope you feel better soon!
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Made this tonight for friends and it was a huge hit! Thanks for the recipe – looking forward to getting my hands on your book.
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Update-made and loved it! I did half the recipe and put foil under the noodles because I wasn’t sure how a half recipe of lasagna would hold up in the pan (Half of a recipe filled my pan nicely anyway). I also put foil over the pan during baking so that I didn’t have to boil the noodles. The foil keeps the moisture in and I didn’t need to make any extra sauce. It takes about a full hour to bake. It ended up great, especially with the easy clean up with foil under the noodles and doing it no-boil style. And yes, definitely cottage cheese.
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Very useful, as I am making frozen take-away foods for my guests, and Lasagne is always a hit . I,m going to try the cottage cheese, sounds delicious!!
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Great idea on freezing individual portions! I will try that. Sometimes, though, I take casseroles to sick people at church and I usually try to take a frozen casserole that they can keep until they need it.
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