Thursday, August 26, 2010

Slow Cooker Lasagna

A Weight Watchers recipe that was given to me a while back and worked out pretty nicely for a busy weeknight after work! I'm just going to type it up as I made it this time!

Ingredients
1 lb. extra lean ground beef
1 small onion, chopped
1 tsp. minced garlic
28 oz. can (Italian) tomatoes
15 oz. can tomato sauce
1 tsp. kosher salt
1 tsp. dried oregano
1/2 tsp. dried basil (or 1.5 tsp of fresh basil)
1/4 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes
1 cup part skim ricotta
1.5 cups shredded mozzerella
1/2 cup shredded parmesan
6 no-boil (oven ready) lasagna noodles

Directions:
Brown the beef with onion and garlic. Drain grease. Stir in tomatoes, tomato sauce, salt, oregano, basil, and red pepper flakes, allow to simmer for five minutes to allow flavors to absorb. Meanwhile, combine ricotta with 1 cup shredded mozzerella.
Spoon 1/3 of beef mixture into a 5-qt. slow cooker. Break 3 of the noodles in half and cover the beef mixture as best you can. Spread half of the cheese mixture over the noodles. Layer another 1/3 of the beef mixture, covering with remaining 3 broken noodles, and spread on last of cheese mixture. Tope with remaining beef mixture. Cook for 4-6 hours on low.
Top with half cup of mozzerella and half cup of parmesan, mixed. Cover and allow to set removed from heat for 10 minutes to allow lasagna to firm.

If I would have been thinking I would have added some baby spinach! Or zucchini is also recommended. Jeremy loved it and Noah ate 2 small bowls! Salt not necessary. I made this up yesterday and left it in the fridge until this morning. The noodles were pretty sloppy so I'm not sure if its because of all the sitting and soaking in the fridge or sitting in the warm crock pot for several hours after cooking on low for four. I wonder if I could use regular noodles and get away with not boiling them first. Any thoughts on that? Anyhow, this worked out well for having dinner ready when we got home tonight!

1 comment:

  1. I made your recipe for Slow Cooker Lasagna today and took it to our potluck dinner at church. It was very good and every bite was eaten. Next time, I am going to add the spinach, too. Thanks

    ReplyDelete