If you’re a poor college student, or a young professional looking to pinch some pennies, OR you just want a cheap meal alternative to homemade lasagna, here is your fix, Poor Man’s Lasagna!
This treat is the kind of meal that is stick to your ribs good, it makes a huge amount, AND you can make the lasagna ahead of time, put it in the fridge or freezer and pull it out to cook it when you are ready to eat. So, how can you make lasagna on a budget?
Ingredients Substitution:
1. Lasagna Noodles 1 bag of egg noodles
2. Ricotta Cheese 8oz cream cheese and 16oz sour cream
3. Meat sauce, sorry, no substation here, sauce is sauce, if you’re looking for a price cut… buy the one on sale.
4. Some kind of expensive cheese a bag of cheddar and a bag of Mozzarella OR just the italian mix
Cooking Instructions:
Brown the hamburger or ground turkey, deepening on your preference, then drain, and return it to the pan and add the pasta sauce and reduce heat.
While your making the sauce bring a pot of water to a boil to cook the noodles, and then drain them
DO NOT rise the noodles, while they are still hot combine them in a bowl with 80z of ROOM TEMP cream cheese and 16oz of sour cream, mix them until will covered and until all clumps of cream cheese are gone.
After you have mixed the noodles and then its time to layer the lasagna. The best part is you don’t have to worry about the lasagna noodles tearing or sticking together! The first thing to do is spread a SMALL amount of pasta sauce on the bottom of a 9×13 pan. Then, layer noodles, sauce, cheese, sauce, noodles, sauce, cheese, etc until the pan is full. If you have a very deep pan, I suggest doubling the sauce amount because you need to make sure the top layer of noodles is covered with sauce and cheese to make sure the noodles don’t dry out and get hard and crunchy.
Once you have made the lasagna, you can either cover it and freeze or refrigerate it to cook later or pop it in the oven right away. If you choose to cook it immediately, you should cook it about 30 mins on 350. If it is cold or was frozen and thawed, cook it for 45 minutes on 350 degrees. Let cool then serve. This meal saves great and I would venture to say tastes EVEN better the next day, if thats at all possible! Happy cooking, and enjoy!
C P & B 