4-Cheese Lasagna Recipe

When you're craving a heart-warming dish that fills your belly and satisfies your hunger for meat, cheese, and carbs, lasagna is an excellent choice. It can be easily customized to suit your palate, and it's basically everything you need in a meal in one savory dish. Reheated leftovers are just as good as when it comes out of the oven, and you can make lasagna in advance and freeze it until you're ready to serve it. That's a lot of praise for one humble dish.

Mashed recipe developer Feta Topalu of Fetty's Food Blog shares this 4-cheese lasagna recipe you'll want to devour immediately. That's right, four different types of cheese come together in this iconic dish. We have to agree with Topalu when she says, "Nothing beats a classic, cheesy homemade lasagna casserole straight from the oven!" She loves the comforting nature of this hearty dish, and we're confident you will too.

To begin, you'll need olive oil, lean ground beef, a chopped yellow onion, and minced garlic. For the sauce, get a can of crushed tomatoes, a can of tomato sauce, tomato paste, dried basil, dried oregano, crushed red pepper flakes, kosher salt, and fresh cracked black pepper. Next, you'll need dry lasagna noodles, ricotta cheese, grated Parmesan, a large egg, grated mozzarella, grated fontina cheese, and chopped parsley to garnish.

Topalu highlights the use of fontina, a cheese from Italy. She explains that it "adds more depth," and describes, "When it's baked, it melts beautifully with the other cheeses."

You'll need a large pot or a Dutch oven to make the sauce. Place it on the burner on medium-high heat and pour in 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Add the ground beef and mix it up as you cook. It should take a little over 5 minutes for the meat to brown. At this point, use a slotted spoon to remove the beef and transfer it to a plate.

Pour another tablespoon of olive oil into the pot and sauté the chopped onion for 2 minutes. Add the minced garlic in with the onion and cook it for 30 seconds until it becomes pleasantly fragrant. Next, add the cooked beef back in with the onions and garlic and stir everything to combine.

Dump the contents of the cans of crushed tomatoes and tomato sauce into the pot, as well as the tomato paste. Then season with basil, oregano, red pepper flakes, salt, and pepper. Stir to combine the ingredients thoroughly, then bring the contents to a light simmer. Now, lower the heat to medium-low and cook the tomato and meat sauce for 30 minutes, stirring every now and then to prevent it from sticking to the bottom.

Now, fill a large pot with salted water and bring it to a boil. Cook the lasagna noodles according to the package directions, or for 8 to 10 minutes until al dente. Carefully remove the noodles from the water and rinse them in cold water. Transfer them to a dish and drizzle them with 1 tablespoon of olive oil so they don't stick together.

In a medium bowl, mix the ricotta, Parmesan, and egg until properly combined. Now that all the components of the lasagna are ready, preheat the oven to 375 F.

You'll need a 9x13-inch baking dish to assemble this cheesy lasagna. To begin, spread 1 ½ cups of meat sauce on the bottom surface of the pan. Then, lay three noodles lengthwise to cover the sauce and top them with a third of the sauce remaining in the pot. Next, spread about half of the ricotta mixture on top, and sprinkle it with a third of the mozzarella and fontina cheeses. 

Place a second layer of noodles on the cheese, and cover it with another third of the meat sauce, the rest of the ricotta mixture, and another third each of the mozzarella and fontina. Add the last layer of noodles over the cheese, then top it with the rest of the meat sauce, followed by the rest of the mozzarella and fontina to finish it off.

Once the multi-layered lasagna is assembled and the oven has reached temperature, spray a large piece of tin foil with cooking spray and cover the dish tightly with the oiled side down. Pop the dish onto an oven rack and bake it for 40 minutes. Then, discard the tin foil and bake it for an extra 10 to 15 minutes until the top is golden and the cheese is bubbly.

If you are planning to make the lasagna in advance to freeze it, Topalu instructs to "Cover the dish tightly with two sheets of foil and freeze up to a month." When you're ready to serve it, "Defrost [it] in the refrigerator overnight and bake as directed the next day."

Give the lasagna about 15 minutes to cool down — the temptation will be high but the burns are not worth it. Once it's ready to serve, garnish it with some freshly chopped parsley. 

Topalu suggests, "This 4-cheese lasagna recipe can be served with garlic bread, Caesar salad, Caprese salad, or balsamic grilled eggplant." Unless you're feeding a crowd, you'll have some leftovers to look forward to. "To store any leftover lasagna, cover the baking dish with plastic wrap and store in the refrigerator for up to four days," our recipe developer recommends.