Red, White, and Green Lasagna

Red, White and Green Turkey Lasagna

For the  red sauce:

2 cans tomato sauce

1 can diced Italian tomatoes

½ cup finely chopped onions

5 minced garlic cloves (I like garlic)

½ tblspn Italian herbs

1 lb ground turkey

Salt and pepper   to taste

Healthy pinch of sugar

For the béchamel sauce:

4 tblspn butter

3 tbspn flour

2 cups milk (I used whole)

1 bay leaf

Sprinkling nutmeg

2 good handfuls of Italian blend cheese

For the ricotta filling:

1 tub ricotta cheese

Chopped spinach (fresh or frozen, I had frozen so make sure you squeeze out the excess water with a towel if you use frozen)

1 egg

Salt and pepper to taste

Like a ½ tblspn garlic power

Also, 1 package no bake lasagna noodles

Remaining bag of Italian blend cheese for the top of lasagna

To make the red sauce first sweat your onions and garlic in a little butter or olive oil until translucent, add your turkey meat and brown, the nice thing about turkey meat is there is virtually no fat to drain so you don’t have to worry about that.  I then add the diced tomatoes and let them cook for a minute and then the 2 cans of sauce and rest of the seasonings.  I let this simmer for at least 3 hours before I started the béchamel.

 In the meantime mix your ricotta and egg, I just get in there with my hands (freshly washed!)  and get it mixed really good then add the garlic, spinach salt and pepper.  I also added flat leaf parsley because I had some fresh on hand.

Then start your béchamel by melting the butter on medium beat and whisking the flour in.  If it doesn’t seem like all your flour is mixing in add some more butter a little at a time.  Keep whisking for about 2 minutes and slowly add your milk in whisking constantly so there are no lumps, this is where I added the bay leaf and nutmeg in, let thicken and then mix the cheese in until melted, the key is to whisk enough that you don’t break your sauce, the right temperature is key, if its too high the milk and butter will separate.

Assembly of the lasagna:

Ladle 2 or 3 spoons of the red sauce on the bottom of a baking dish, line the lasagna noodles on top of that whichever way you get the most coverage of the noodle without overlapping too much followed  by your ricotta mixture and press another layer of noodles on top and even out the mixture, then I just used the rest of the noodles and put the red sauce and béchamel on the same layers reserving most of the béchamel for the top layer and then add the rest of the cheese.  Cover with foil and bake at 350 for 30 minutes.  Remove the foil and bake another 15 or 20 minutes until cheese is browned.  Let cool about 10 to 15 minutes and serve!

Then voila!  Enjoy!