One Pot Lasagna
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This One Pot Lasagna has all the flavors of traditional lasagna, without the work! A quick, easy, high protein, one pan recipe you’ll love!
We love lasagna but honestly, the only time we make it is Christmas eve or the occasional family gathering. It’s a rarity and that’s a shame.
I took all of the ingredients we use in a traditional lasagna and turned it into a simple and delicious one pot lasagna.
Mozzarella, Parmesan, and ricotta cheese are stirred into a flavorful tomato sauce with ground beef. The farfalle pasta is reminiscent of wrinkly lasagna sheets, but easier to eat.
Enjoy a bowl of this lasagna pasta and the time you saved making it!!
Tyler’s Tips for the Best One Pot Lasagna
- Buy good quality Parmesan, ricotta, and mozzarella cheese. I know it seems silly, but the high quality cheeses really add the right flavor and texture to this recipe.
- Grate your own cheese. Instead of using pre shredded mozzarella, grate your own so there are no caking agents in it. Find a good Parmesan cheese without any fillers, and look for a quality whole milk ricotta cheese.
Ingredients:
substitutions
Olive Oil: You could use avocado oil, but we really recommend extra virgin olive oil
Ground Beef: We like 85/15 ground beef. Feel free to use leaner ground beef depending on what you like. I haven’t tried making this with ground turkey or ground chicken but I think it would work ok!
Spices: Dried basil, oregano, and red pepper flakes are simple and flavorful spices for this recipe. You can use fresh herbs if needed. Dried parsley is another good option if you don’t have basil or oregano in your pantry.
Pasta: The bowtie (farfalle) pasta is our favorite for making this lasagna-ish without using giant lasagna noodles or sheets. It has great texture and ridges to collect all of this delicious sauce. You can also use penne, rigatoni, cavatelli, and orecchiette if needed. We have not tried using gluten-free pasta but it should work well in this recipe. If you need a low carb lasagna recipe, try our Zucchini Lasagna.
Tomato Sauce: Low sodium Marinara sauce is the best sauce to use for this recipe. You can use crushed tomatoes or whole tomatoes and puree them in a blender to get a similar marinara sauce texture if needed.
Cheese: Ricotta, mozzarella, and parmesan are the holy trinity of cheeses for lasagna. We don’t recommend substituting them but if needed, you can use grated asiago in place of parmesan, cottage cheese in place of ricotta, and fontina cheese for mozzarella. The flavor will change slightly but you should achieve a similar texture and consistency.
How to Make One Pot Lasagna
- Heat olive oil in a large pot over medium-high heat, then add the ground beef and cook for 5 minutes, breaking it apart; stir in the onion, garlic, and spices and cook for 4 more minutes.
- Stir the pasta, water, and marinara into the pot, cover, and bring to a boil; reduce to medium and cook covered for 6–7 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat, uncover, and let sit for 5 minutes before stirring in the mozzarella, Parmesan, and ricotta.
What to Serve with One Pot Lasagna
This lasagna skillet is a complete meal on its own (we love it topped with fresh basil and dollops of ricotta or slices of mozzarella), but you can also serve it with:
- with a Caesar Salad or Italian Salad
- garlic bread or crusty sourdough
- Roasted Asparagus, Grilled Vegetables, or Roasted Broccoli
storage
Storing: This will last in the refrigerator for up to 4 days in an airtight container.
Freezing: We don’t recommend freezing this recipe.
Reheating: You can reheat this recipe in the microwave, toaster oven, oven or on the stove.
One Pot Lasagna
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
- 1 pound ground beef
- ½ cup minced yellow onion
- 1 tablespoon minced garlic
- 1 teaspoon dried basil
- ½ teaspoon dried oregano
- ¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes
- 2 ½ cups dry farfalle pasta 8 ounces
- 2 ½ cups water
- 1 ½ cups low sodium marinara sauce
- ½ cup shredded mozzarella
- ½ cup grated Parmesan
- ½ cup ricotta
Instructions
- In a large pot, heat the olive oil over medium-high heat.
- Add the ground beef to the pot and cook for 5 minutes, breaking it apart with a spatula as it cooks.
- Once the ground beef has cooked for 5 minutes, add the onion, garlic, basil, oregano, and red pepper to the pot. Stir together and cook for an additional 4 minutes.
- Add the pasta, water, and marinara sauce to the pot.
- Stir together well and cover the pot.
- Turn the heat to high and bring the pot to a boil. It will take about 3-5 minutes to come to a boil.
- Once the pasta is boiling, reduce the heat to medium and cook covered for 6-7 minutes or half the amount of time the pasta package recommends. Make sure to stir every few minutes to prevent scorching the bottom of the pot. The pasta will be very al dente, but shouldn’t be hard.
- After the pasta has cooked, remove the pot from the heat.
- Remove the lid and let the pasta sit for 5 minutes. The pasta will continue to cook and absorb the liquid.
- Stir in the mozzarella, Parmesan and ricotta.
- Serve warm, topped with extra Parmesan!
This was excellent! My family ate every last bite. Not sure if I will go back to making traditional lasagna again!
Delicious! I added extra cheese, salted the meat a little bit and made it spicier. 3 out of 4 of our household ate this and enjoyed it and that is almost unheard of for us, ha.
This was delicious! Very easy, and I love that it’s one pot. We did have to add salt and more ricotta for our personal tastes.
Another hit with the family, thank you for these easy, quick and delicious recipes!
Method worked well. Could have used more spice. I think I will try it with Italian chicken sausage next time.
This recipe was delicious I do have a suggestion the dried herbs are okay but twice as strong and fresh herbs are way better and I 175% agree about quality cheese but I’ll say sometimes I make lasagna with cheese raviolis or cheese tortellini’s which takes the lasagna to a kicked up notch