The crème de la crème of my Italy-born mother-in-law's cooking repertoire is a meat lasagna with a classic béchamel sauce. Sometimes it's better to know when you've been beat, so I don't even attempt to re-create that masterpiece. Instead, I do my own spinach lasagna, which could be seen as healthier, vegetarian, and easier, OR as a dumbed-down, cheater version. Take your pick.

One of the easiest time savers is to use no-boil lasagna noodles. They're usually my go-to and I like that they're often thinner like the paper-thin sheets of pasta my mother-in-law will use, but the other day I had regular whole wheat organic lasagna noodles, so that's what I used. I read that you can use regular lasagna noodles without pre-boiling them if you add an extra cup or so of liquid to your sauce and are sure to cover each noodle with adequate liquid, however I didn't experiment and instead boiled them until just a little past al dente (a personal preference, I know most people like their pasta with a bit of bite to it).

I usually have some homemade marinara sauce in the freezer, ready to go for meals like this. If not, feel free to make your own on the spot or use a good quality jarred sauce, which you can always doctor up with spices and extra garlic, onion, or basil. I also use frozen spinach to save time (a bag or two of fresh or baby would work fine too, but you may want to quickly blanch and chop it up before adding to the mixture). And as always, this recipe is fully customizable to your liking - go ahead and add different cheeses, meats, etc.

This recipe may not score me points with die-hard fans of a labor-intensive (and admittedly, exquisitely tasting) traditional lasagna, but it's a satisfying recipe I can make easily on a weekend...and my husband went back for fourths (yes, fourths), so it’s got to taste good!

Ingredients

• Lasagna noodles, 1 box (no-boil ones do make it easier)
• Tomato/marinara sauce, about 2 cups (if you are using a 28 oz jar you can add ½ cup water to thin it out a little if needed)
• Tomato paste, 1 Tbsp
• Red pepper flakes, 1 tsp (optional)
• Frozen chopped spinach, 10 oz package
• Low-fat ricotta (or cottage) cheese, 16 oz
• Egg, 1
• Low-fat mozzarella cheese, shredded, 1.5 cups
• Parmesan cheese, grated, 0.5 cup

I missed a few steps here, but you get the idea

Directions

1- If you’re using regular noodles, start to boil the water and cook the noodles until they’re about al dente (or softer, as per my preference). Drain out the cooking water and cover with cold water to stop the noodles from cooking further and to keep them easily separated. Also preheat the oven to 350F.
2- Defrost/heat up the sauce in a pan and mix in any spices, garlic, onion, etc., that you want to add (do this even with jarred sauce to help the flavors meld).
3- Defrost the spinach in the microwave per the package directions. Squeeze out the excess moisture with a towel and set aside.
4- Mix the ricotta, egg, ~1 cup mozzarella and ~ 0.25 cups Parmesan cheese in a separate bowl. Add the spinach and mix in evenly.
5- Take a 9” x 13” dish and ladle in a bit of sauce at the bottom. Layer three lasagna noodles length-wise into the pan. Add ~1/3 of the cheese mixture, evenly layering over the noodles. Add ~ 1/3 of the remaining sauce.
6- Repeat the layering process 2 more times so that you end with sauce on top. You can also alternate the direction of the lasagna noodles by cutting them to size if you’d like. Add the remaining mozzarella and parmesan cheese on top of the sauce.
7- Cover loosely with foil and cook ~ 50 minutes. Remove the foil and cook another 10 or so minutes just to crisp the top a little.