Who doesn't love lasagna! The key to making an awesome lasagna is to use fresh ingredients. I also like lasagna from fancy restaurants. You know the kind I'm talking about, where they make 1 serving of lasagna at a time and the ingredients are really fresh...the noodles stick to the sauce (instead of sliding away from each other). Great cheese, great meat, great sauce and it all leads to a great lasagna.
The dish is believed to have originated in Italy. However, the term "lasagna" comes from the Greeks. The Italians used the word to refer to the dish in which lasagna is made. It wasn't long before the name of the food took on the name of the serving dish.
Adding to the confusion about the origin of lasagna, the recipe was featured in the first cookbook ever written in England, leading to an urban legend that the dish originated in the British Isles.
With lasagna, it's all about the freshness of the ingredients...especially, the cheese. Some lasagna recipes have multiple cheeses, but most often you'll find ricotta and mozzarella. If you go to the south of Italy, you'll find these two cheeses in most lasagnas.
One type of my favorite lasagna is lasagna alla Bolognese, which uses parmigiano reggiano, bolognese sauce and nutmeg flavored sauce. Not many know that nutmeg is used in some versions of lasagna, but nutmeg adds a nice touch to any lasagna. Lasagna verdi, which includes spinach is also another of my favorites.
Outside of Italy, there are many different types of lasagna...especially in the United States. From spinach lasagna to vegetable lasagna and spicy chipotle lasagna and everything in between. You'll find different lasagnas all over the United States.
In the United States, rippled sheets of pasta are common, but not in Northern Italy. In Northern Italy, rippled pasta sheets are typically made of durum or hard wheat which repels sauces " the ripples are designed to hold the sauce better. Emilia-Romagna egg pasta, which is made with soft wheat and drinks up the lasagna sauce and does not need the help of rippling.
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