lasagna sauce spaghetti

Last night, after finishing my pie plate project I was craving lasagna!

One of my favorite meals in this entire world is my mother's lasagna. Next to that is my spasagna.  However, both of those dishes take a lot of steps and then there's the whole waiting on it to bake process. And I was hungry. I've mentioned before, that I am all about quick and easy hearty recipes with a lot of taste. 

If you're looking for an easy week night recipe that takes care of your lasgna fix, you need to try out my lasagna sauce spaghetti! It's nothing fancy and gourmet but it's saucy, cheesey and delicious. Unfortunately, it's not real lasagna and it never will be. If you want real lasgna, well, you'll just have to wait. 

Here's what you'll need :

16 oz spaghetti

1 Lb of ground beef or sausage

1 Jar Pasta Sauce 

1 Cup Ricotta Cheese

2 Cups Half and Half (or milk)

2  Cups Shredded Mozarella Cheese

1/2 Cup Grated Parmesan Cheese

1 Tbs Sugar

1 Tsp Basil

1 Tsp Oregano

1/4 Cup Dehydrated onion (optional)

[side note: My cousin tried this with milk last night and she said it wasn't thick enough.... I've only ever used half and half. Use less milk if possible]

I like to turn my stove on high and let my pan heat for a few minutes then I sear the ground beef. I then quickly turn the heat down to medium and add the dehydrated onion. This can be a dangerous operation at times with grease flying everywhere so I always keep my splatter screen at bay.

Once the meat is brown, I drain it and put it off to the side. To strain, I usually set a strainer on top of a plate in the sink where I will dump the meat to let it drain. Once the grease is cooled, I will scrape it into the trash can after dinner. 

Bring a pot of water to boil and cook your spaghetti as instructed. The reason my spaghetti is yellow is because it's gluten free corn spaghetti.

It's ugly but it sure does taste good! I like it way better than the rice options out there. I am able to find this at a lot of stores including Krogers, Martins and Wal-Mart. I usually get it at a local Mennonite bulk food store not too far from where I live. It's the best price I can find and it's good to shop small business!

While your pasta is cooking, bring your jar of pasta sauce to a very low boil to start your lasagna sauce. You don't want it spit and popping all over! At least I don't. I am too anal about my kitchen. You can add in the sugar, basil and orgeno. I didn't put this in my list of ingredients, but you can add salt and pepper as well. I always put sugar in my pasta sauce. My mom was raised in the south and she says that's just how they do things down there. No questions asked. It's good that way! Actually, it helps to balance out the acidity in the tomato. Once your sauce is nice and hot, stir in half and half until smooth then your ricotta cheese. Keep stiring sister! (or mister!) Then you'll do the same thing with the mozarella and eventually the parmesan. I hate saying "parmesan"... my husband and I always just call it "the parm." So once you've thrown in the parm, stir everything until it's smooth then dump in your meat.

If you've timed everything just right, you dumped your meat in before you needed your strainer for the spaghetti! It worked out for me but I was cutting it close! 

You can now serve the lasagna sauce onto the spaghetti and garnish with parmesan. I forgot to make garlic bread to go with mine but I just love dipping garlic bread in lasagna sauce! 

So give this a try and tell me what you think. I bet you could use this sauce for other things as well! I think it would make a great dipping sauce for breadsticks and maybe as a base for pizza! The possibilities in the kitchen are endliess.

Have fun!

I made a recipe card for you to print. 

Click here to print the card!