Roasted Tomato Lasagna
Today we’ll make roasted tomato lasagna. My husband has been craving for lasagna for a while. I felt a bit guilty for ignoring his request for a few months, so I wanted to make a really nice lasagna with homemade tomato sauce and a thick layer of creamy cheese. I didn’t add any meat or other vegetables to this lasagna, so it emphasizes the tomato flavor and the creaminess of the cheese mixture.
To make the lasagna sauce, you need to roast plum tomatoes for around two hours. Slow roasting the tomatoes takes quite a while, but it’s worth it! The tomato caramelizes and becomes more intense in flavor. I also added some herbs that I harvested from my garden. Some of them have sadly bolted due to the sudden changes in the weather lately in the Netherlands.
After the tomato is well roasted and softens, you want to cook it alongside the aromatics to turn it into sauce. You can cook the sauce the day before or even up to one week before. If so, refrigerate the sauce after it’s cooled down. The flavor will also get better over time as the tomato, alliums, and herbs have some time to rest and meld together.
This roasted tomato lasagna may not be the prettiest dish visually, but it’s so delicious and complex. It’s such a comforting this for this rainy summer. I hope you enjoy it as much as me. I’ll see you in the next newsletter!
Serves 6
Preparation time: 30 minutes
Cooking time: 4 hours 20 minutes
Level of difficulty: 1/3
Keep for 2 days, refrigerated
Ingredients:
1.5kg plum tomatoes, halved
15g/ ¼ cup basil, chopped
v3 tbs oregano, chopped
3 tbs olive oil
1 onion, chopped
5 cloves garlic, minced
240ml/ 1 cup water
140g/ ½ cup tomato paste
To taste, salt and ground black pepper
500g/ 18 ounces ricotta
180g/ 6 ounces mozzarella
50g/ 2 ounces grana padano
10-12 lasagna sheets
Steps:
Preheat oven to 150°C/ 300°F. Line a baking sheet with a parchment paper.
In a bowl, add halved tomatoes, 1/3 of the basil, 1 tablespoon of oregano, and 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Mix well with your hands and transfer the tomatoes to the baking sheet. Bake for 2 hours. You can do this up to one week before.
Preheat or increase the heat of the oven to 180°C/ 350°F. Heat a tablespoon of olive oil in a big skillet. Add onion, garlic, 1/3 of the basil, and 1 tablespoon of oregano. Sauté for a few minutes until the onion is translucent and fragrant.
Add the roasted tomatoes, water, and tomato paste to the skillet. Mash the tomatoes with the back of the spatula and simmer for about 10-15 minutes on low heat. It’s ok if the sauce is a bit chunky. Season with salt and pepper.
In a bowl, add ricotta, ¾ of the mozzarella, ½ of the grana padano, and the rest of the basil and oregano. Season with some salt and pepper.
In a casserole or baking dish, add a big ladle of tomato sauce and spread it. Top with 3-4 lasagna sheets. Dollop the cheese mixture on top of the pasta. Spread a big ladle of tomato sauce on top of the cheese and repeat the layers. Finally, place the remaining lasagna sheets on top. Spread the rest of the sauce, making sure you cover the pasta entirely with the sauce. Sprinkle the remaining mozzarella and grana Padano on top.
Cover the top of the baking dish with aluminum foil, but don’t wrap the dish with the foil as we don’t want the lasagna to steam. We just want to prevent the top from browning too much before the inside is cooked. Bake the lasagna for about 45 minutes. Then, open the foil cover and bake for 15 more minutes. Let the lasagna cool down for about 10 minutes before digging in!