Thursday, October 16, 2008

Spinach and Prosciutto Lasagna...

While lasagna is one of those dishes that can be extremely worthy of its typical lengthy process, especially if you make the noodles by hand, you may not always have the energy, or time, to prepare everything yourself. With a few no-boil noodles and some homemade sauce from the freezer, this Spinach and Prosciutto Lasagna was a breeze to assemble!

A mess of spinach, ricotta cheese, garlic and crushed red pepper are the thick layers in between the noodles for this lasagna. If you use thawed frozen spinach as we did, be sure to muscle out as much of the excess liquid as you can so it doesn't turn this watery as it bakes. Wring it in a towel if you must, but the easiest way I've found and have used for a few years now is to take a potato ricer, slip the greens inside and squeeze down to extract the liquid.

Use your favorite sauce, homemade or jarred, as you are going to bring it to life with one of my favorite and savory indulgent purchases - prosciutto! To be sure that ever-tempting flavor is well spread out, the thinly sliced salty prosciutto is chopped into bits before adding to the sauce. Layered as usual with plenty of sauce, noodles and the healthy filling, the lasagna is topped off with a liberal scattering of mozzarella cheese.

Baked until the noodles swell from drinking in the bright, prosciutto-spiked marinara sauce, you'll want to give this at least 5 minutes resting time before cutting into. With lasagna, I've been known to wait, very impatiently I might add, for about a half hour before diving in so the insides don't slosh all over. However, we only waited about 10 minutes with this and we still managed to pull out fairly clean pieces. A piece of garlic bread and a light salad on the side, we were both happily stuffed to the brim, but that still didn't stop me from stealing a couple extra forkfuls of the leftovers (Jeff did it too!).

6 comments:

  1. This looks great! Can't wait to try it.

    Can't thank you enough for the potato ricer tip!! While I like my mashed potatoes lumpy, I bought it just for this purpose. It works fantastic since I love to put frozen spinach in so many dishes.

    Thanks!! :)

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  2. This surely like a great lasagna. Would be a winner with the boys & their friends. Again, thanks for sharing.

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  3. I made this last night for dinner. Really delicious and easy! I think I would leave out the extra salt next time as the prosciutto made it quite salty. Thanks for a great recipe!

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  4. Oh gosh, the potato ricer is a great idea. I may have to get one.

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  5. Hey Joe - Thanks for posting this. I made it today and it was great! I think I used too little prosciutto and I might use a bit more next time. Really good a definite repeater!!!

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  6. Jeremy - we liked our potatoes the same way!

    Helene - Our pleasure!

    Helen - Thanks for the feedback!

    Luana - well worth the purchase!

    Terri - Fantastic! Glad you liked.

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