Description
There are a fair amount of steps here, so I’d never say that this is an easy weeknight dinner. But the days are technically longer now, and the steps themselves are fairly stress-free (depending on your familiarity and comfort with a bechamel), so go ahead and pour yourself a glass of wine, pull on an apron and spend an hour putting this together. You won’t regret it.
Ingredients
- 1/2 pound (8 ounces) dried lasagna noodles
- 12 tablespoons cup (1–1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, divided
- 2 pounds cremini or portobello mushrooms, sliced
- 4 cups whole milk, at room temperature
- 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
- salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste
- a hefty pinch of ground nutmeg
- 1 heaping cup freshly grated Parmesan
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 375F.
- Prep the lasagna noodles: bring a large pot of water to boil with a lot of salt (salty like the sea!) and a splash of olive oil. Add the lasagna noodles and cook for 10 minutes. (I had to use no-boil noodles because that’s all they had at the store, so I par-boiled them for 5 minutes. I’d hesitate to go totally no-boil because the noodles will pull moisture from other sources and then the lasagna might become dry.) Drain and set aside.
- Saute the mushrooms: Slice the mushrooms 1/4-inch thick. Heat 2 tablespoons of olive and 2 tablespoons of butter over medium-high heat in a saute pan or high-walled skillet. Cook half of the mushrooms with a few pinches of salt for 5 minutes, until they’ve browned and start to release some of their juices, tossing a few times. Set aside, then add more oil and butter and cook the remaining half of the mushrooms.
- Brown your butter: Reduce the heat to medium-low. In the same saute pan or skillet that you used for the mushrooms, melt and brown the remaining 8 tablespoons (1 stick) of butter, watching it carefully and stirring frequently to ensure the butter browns evenly. (Here’s a nice step-by-step tutorial).
- Make the bechamel: Add the flour and cook for 1 minute on low heat, whisking constantly. Pour in the milk slowly, a little at a time and stirring until combined. Once you’ve added half of the milk and combined it, you can add the rest all at once, with 2 teaspoons of kosher salt, 1 teaspoon of pepper, and the nutmeg. Cook over medium-low, whisking frequently, until the mixture is thick — about 5 minutes. Set aside.
- Assemble the lasagna: Spread some of the sauce in the bottom of a 9-x-13 baking dish. Arrange a layer of noodles on top (I did three, with no overlap, which made slicing the lasagna a total breeze), then more sauce (about 1/4 of the remaining mixture). Top with 1/3 of the mushrooms and 1/4 of the grated Parmesan. Repeat twice more, then top with a final layer of noodles, the remaining sauce and the last bit of Parmesan.
- Bake for 40-45 minutes, until the top is bronzed and the sauce is bubbly. Let the lasagna sit at room temperature for 15 minutes before serving.
Notes
Lasagnas are a dream to prep ahead and freeze. You can either freeze it unbaked, by assembling it in a foil pan and then triple-wrapping it with plastic wrap (which I’d recommend of the two options), or after it’s baked — allow it to cool completely and then triple-wrap before freezing. Either way, defrost and bake for the suggested time. You may need a bit longer if your lasagna hasn’t totally defrosted beforehand, or a bit less if you’ve already baked your lasagna and don’t want it to over-brown (you can also reheat it covered with tin foil if you’re concerned about over-browning).
Adapted from Smitten Kitchen