Matzo Lasagna

I meant to post this recipe before Passover. Clearly, I didn’t.

As soon as the boxes of Yehuda Matzos show up on the shelves in March, I stock up. Matzo makes a great pantry stable, I think it goes with everything: peanut butter, jam, hummus, and salsa. Have you ever heard of baking matzo in lasagna? I picked up Rachael Ray’s magazine (forgive me) in the doctor’s office, and I really liked one of her recipe ideas (I can’t believe it either.)

Normally, her flavor combinations don’t appeal to me. But this idea just makes sense. Using matzo is quicker than making lasagna noodles, and it still tastes and feels like baked, gooey lasagna. It’s quite clever, really. After making it for myself, I’m convinced this is the easiest way to make lasagna and I would question using traditional noodles in the future.

So giving credit where credit is due, here is Rachel Ray’s recipe for matzo lasagna.

And here is mine.

Matzo Lasagna

Serves 6 | Prep time: 20 minutes | Cook time: 1 hour

Ingredients:

6-7 matzos

~2 cups marinara sauce

3/4 cup part skim ricotta cheese

1 egg

salt and pepper

2 cups loosely packed baby spinach

1/3 cup parmesan cheese

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400˚F. In a medium bowl, combine ricotta cheese, beaten egg, salt, and pepper. Assemble the lasagna in a medium glass baking dish (mine was about 8″x9″.)

Spread 4 or 5 tablespoons of sauce on the bottom of the dish. Top that with a layer of matzo, breaking the matzo into pieces as necessary. I used about 2 pieces of matzo per layer, and there were 3 layers total.

Top the matzo with more sauce and half of the ricotta cheese mixture. Use a spatula or knife to spread the ricotta evenly across the matzo.

Spread the baby spinach across the cheese layer. Top with a few tablespoons of sauce.

Place another layer of matzo.

Repeat layers of sauce, ricotta mixture, and more sauce.

Apply a last layer of matzo.

Spread sauce across, then sprinkle generously with parmesan.

Place lasagna in oven. Bake for 40-60 minutes, until cheese on top is golden, and bubbles are coming up from the bottom of the dish.

Let stand 20 minutes before serving.

Now, for a play-by-play:

Assembling all the ingredients is often the hardest part about making a lasagna.

Once the ingredients are together, they form layers in the baking dish, very straightforward.

I topped the baking dish to the brim. Next time I’ll use a larger dish, but this one was the perfect dimensions for a piece of matzo, so I had to try it.

Here is the cheesy beauty after it came out of the oven.

Obviously, any vegetables, animal, or mineral could be substituted for the baby spinach I put in here. It’s my favorite veggie for lasagna, but I can think of a dozen other ingredients that would be good, too.

Served with a medley of vegetables for a simple, home-style meal.

And here’s what my kitchen actually looked like when I was making this thing:

It doesn’t have to be pretty to tasty good! My stomach is growling just thinking about it. Go out and grab a box of Yehuda before it leaves the shelves (which it might have already, I am so delinquent with posting these days!)