Tiny Lasagnas!
Lasagna is indulgent, time-consuming, and delicious. How to make it even better? That's right--make it tiny.
In a moment of complete insanity, I decided to experiment with making lasagna in my woefully underused muffin tins, and I am very pleased to report that they turned out as good as I hoped. Taking your lasagna out of the casserole dish and into muffin pans takes a couple adaptations, but I think it's worth it. They're easier to pack and eat if you're taking them for lunch, and any additional time requirements are pretty much offset by not having to carefully layer noodles and do quite as much prep for each layer. When you're crowding so many ingredients in such a small space, they're going to reliably mix together when cooking, meaning you don't have to do it by hand. I did a little extra work in the recipe below in order to cook the garlic, onions, and mushrooms, but if you pick one of the excellent pre-made marinara sauces available, you can skip every pre-oven step other than cooking your noodles.
Ingredients:
Lasagna Noodles
Tomato Sauce (pre-seasoned pasta sauce or plain tomato sauce with salt, pepper, garlic, onion, basil, and oregano added in cooking, plus meat or veggies below)
Ground Meat (or, to make it veggie like mine, finely chopped olives, onions, and mushrooms for flavor and texture)
Cheese--Ricotta and Mozzarella
Instructions:
Cook lasagna noodles to al dente (they're going to cook a little more in the oven--for 12 muffin tins, I used four noodles). Prepare tomato sauce, meat, or veggies if using homemade. Remove noodles from water and, while flat on a cutting board, slice into small triangles, each a little wider than a single muffin tin. Carefully lay two triangles on the bottom of each well-oiled tin in opposite directions (wide ends pointing apart). Add two large tablespoons of tomato sauce and top with two more noodle triangles. Add a dollop of ricotta, any extra herbs you like, and sprinkle with mozzarella and/or parmesan cheese. Bake at 375 degrees for around 22-25 minutes. When you remove from oven, each lasagna will still be oozy, gooey, and messy. Let them cool in the refrigerator overnight, and you should be able to remove each one cleanly and eat handheld cooled or at room temperature. Be prepared to fend off curious and hungry onlookers.
