Mary Berry's hearty lasagne is speedy to make for cosy autumn dinners
Few dishes are guaranteed to be crowd-pleasers, but you can be sure that a lasagne is one of them. This Mary Berry version will take your pasta game to the next level, and your family will be begging you to add this delicious comfort food to the weekly dinner rotation as the nights get shorter and colder.
TV presenter and chef Mary Berry's top tip for this one is to use sausage meat instead of beef for an extra flavour that she says "is so good for lasagne," as well as a little bit of chilli to give it some oomph, and crème fraîche to replace bechamel sauce.
"So simple easy and a lot less effort" says Berry - but here's the best part, it only takes a mere 30 minutes to whip it up.
This recipe, Berry has billed in a video online as being one of her absolute favourites, and it's also featured on BBC Good Food. An "express" version of the classic dish, it's absolutely spot on for those mid-week evenings when you're running low on energy and inspiration and will serve about six people.
Ingredients:
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- butter, for greasing
- 6 large dried lasagne sheets
- 75g mature Cheddar cheese, grated
Pork and spinach sauce:
- 450g sausage meat
- 1 tbsp oil
- 1 red chilli (finely chopped and deseeded)
- 2 garlic cloves (crushed)
- 250g chestnut mushrooms (sliced)
- 200ml crème fraîche
- 1 tbsp plain flour
- 100g spinach
- salt and pepper
Tomato sauce:
- 1 tbsp sage
- 1 tbsp thyme
- 2 tbsp sun-dried tomato paste
- 1 tsp muscovado sugar
- 500g passata
Kitchen equipment:
- Ovenproof dish
- Frying pan
- Jug
First things first, you'll need to grease your ovenproof dish with butter and put your oven on to preheat to 200C/180C Fan/Gas 6. Then boil some water and let it cool very slightly before soaking your six lasagne sheets in it to help it soften - it should stay soaking while you make both of the sauces.
Heat some oil in your frying pan, then add your sausage meat until "every little bit [has turned into] a lovely golden brown colour," says Berry. This should take between 5-10 minutes. While you're browning the meat, break it up with two wooden spoons. Then, Berry advises, "Add two tablespoons of flour, two cloves of crushed garlic and one chopped chilli".
While Berry admits she supposes "it's a bit unusual to put chopped chilli in, my lot seem to like chilli in things more and more and more, so it's up to you whether you put it in or not." You should add your mushrooms at this stage too, and fry it all for about five minutes, before stirring in the crème fraîche and spinach.
Then bring it to a boil for a couple of minutes and season the pan with salt and pepper to your taste, before setting it aside. Then you move on to the tomato sauce: all you have to do is mix all your ingredients for this together in a jug and add salt and pepper for flavour.
Drain your soaking lasagne sheets and put about a third of your sausage and spinach sauce into the bottom of your greased ovenproof dish. Then "dribble informally" a third of the tomato sauce on top of this, and arrange three of your lasagne sheets over this, before repeating the process. At the end put your grated cheese at the very top, which "will all melt and become crispy on top".
Cook the final product for 20-30 minutes or "until the pasta is soft and the top is golden". Berry recommends it's "best served the moment it comes out of the oven" so tuck in!
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