I went around in circles with this recipe, not gonna post it I said, this is a dumb recipe I said. But here it is, Ricotta and Tomato Lasagna with asteroid-sized chunks of Italian sausage.
In my head, it was Cannelloni and I should have known things were going to change when I couldn't find cannelloni pasta anywhere! This is where Google comes in really handy because cannelloni pasta was gone from the face of the earth, but manicotti tubes were everywhere.
Looking for a little variation? Check our salmon recipe. So I bought some...mistake. So what's the difference apart from the ridges on the manicotti? It turns out that cannelloni is traditionally made using rolled up lasagna sheets or you can cheat and stuff the filling into manicotti tubes.
This turned out to be a huge pain, so I ended up using this amazing tomato and meat sauce for lasagna instead. Whenever I'm making any sort of pasta meat dish, I'll buy Italian pork sausages and take out the filling because it's already seasoned and usually tastes a whole lot better than just ground beef.
Normally I'd use a 9 x 13-inch pan for lasagna, but I couldn't wait to use these two really cool six inch casserole pots I picked up from Crate and Barrel, I'm getting a little nerdy with my dishes. Lasagna is pretty forgiving so if you have something similar, go ahead and use them.
If you don't, no worries just stick to the 9 x 13 pan and layer the lasagna with the sauce, pasta and Parmesan. I didn't add a bechamel sauce to my lasagna because the ricotta cheese more than made up for the creaminess in the dish.
The picture of the sauce is before the ricotta is added. Once you add it the sauce will turn a much lighter color and taste soooo creamy.
Bake the lasagna in the oven until the top layer of cheese has melted, starts to bubble and turns golden and crispy. Serve with even more grated Parmesan cheese and a seriously large glass of Cabernet.
Creamy Ricotta and Tomato Sausage Lasagna
A rich tomato and sausage based sauce with bacon red wine and herbs. After simmering add ricotta cheese for a velvet finish and layer with lasagna sheets and fresh Parmesan cheese.
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