Meat Ball Lasagna
By
Jane Whittaker
@janenov46
1
My lasagna is made with mini meatballs and chunks of Italian sausage.
Why bother to make meat balls?
The texture of the lasagna changes from flat layers to big fat chunks of meat layers in a sky high lasagna.
Make your sauce the day before for the best flavor. Using hot sauce makes the lasagna soupy.
Blue Ribbon Recipe
It was quite the treat to bite into a meatball to discover which flavor meatball you would get - beef or sausage. Both were very good! A great twist on regular lasagna.
We used four (4) 24 oz. jars of sauce when trying this dish out.
The Test Kitchen
★★★★★ 10 votes5
Ingredients
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105 ozhome made marinara sauce or purchased marinara sauce. my recipe is on file as spaghetti sauce and meatballs.
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2 lbground round
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2 Tbspparmesean cheese, grated
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1 largeegg
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3/4 citalian bread crumbs
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1 lbitalian bulk sausage
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1 1/2 lbshredded mozarella cheese
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24 ozricotta cheese
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2 largeeggs
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·enough lasagna noodles to cover your lasagna pan 3 times. my pan is just huge.
How to Make Meat Ball Lasagna
- Make meatballs by combining ground round, Parmesan cheese, egg and Italian bread crumbs.
- Make small meat balls just under one inch around.
- Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 20 minutes, then put into your marinara sauce.
- At this point I usually put sauce and meat in my slow cooker, lined with a disposable liner, and cook on low for 8 hours. If you opted for a purchased sauce, put meatballs and sausage in your sauce, and simmer for an hour.
- Cook lasagna noodles, drain.
- Mix ricotta and eggs, set aside.
- Spray lasagna pan with Pam.
- Put a layer of just sauce in bottom of pan. Cover with layer of lasagna noodles.
- Put a layer of sauce and meatballs and sausage, put blobs of ricotta mixture randomly, sprinkle a third of mozarella.
- Repeat layer.
- Cover with a layer of lasagna noodles, and then sauce.
- Cover tightly and cook on low 325 degrees for 3 hours.
- Last 10 minutes, sprinkle remainder of mozarella.
- When you remove from the oven, allow to set for 15 minutes before you cut into it.
- One more thing. I always make my sauce and meatballs the day before. Putting hot sauce on hot noodles might result in watery lasagna. Make sure the lasagna noodles are well drained also.