I am making a bunch of lasagna for the weekend but am also going to make one for my friend Hannah, who is pregnant, to have around when her baby comes. I need to freeze it.

I've never frozen lasagna using these noodles, and am unsure it will even be good. Should I cook it first then freeze it? It doesn't seem like it would be good to freeze it with the noodles uncooked. Anyone have experience with this?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Shannon,

Hi... bake it first, then freeze it. It should be fine. It will be like a frozen lasagne you buy and put in the microwave or oven... only ALOT tastier!!

Freeze a little extra sauce along with it so that when your friend (who is surely appreciating your effort) heats it up, she has a little extra sauce in case too much of the fluid dried up.

Diana

At first glance I thought the title was "freaking lasagna"!

I used no-bake noodles once and froze it after baking. I thought the noodles was way too soggy. They practically disintegrated. I decided against using the no-bake noodles again personally, but in this case maybe you'd want to try freezing without baking first?

Man - you guys are FAST.

I have half a box of penne here. Maybe I should make a baked penne dish instead...

I've been freezing half of everything I make for myself, for Hannah. She's a vegetarian, so at the same time it is forcing me to eat healthy.

Valerie, I was interested in your reply, I have not had the freaking soggy lasagne problem BUT! having said that, I do keep it fairly dry (no bechemel, only mozzarella and a bit of ricotta, some veggies and sauce) when I freeze it. Maybe this is why? BUT a sure fire way to avoid the soggy mess is to use penne, Sharon!!

I am fast because I am on my computer in Italy and have had three and one half glasses of wine!!

heck it's friday

diana

I vote for the penne; by the way, it's a really nice thing you're doing, cooking for your friend!

What are "no bake" noodles? If you use them does that mean that after you assemble the lasagne you can't bake the whole thing? I don't understand how this would work.

Thanks for pointing that out to me Airone, it should have read "no boil" and I changed it.

Are the no-boil ones hard when you take them out of the package, and do they just absorb liquid when you bake them with sauce? I've never used them. Are they pre-cooked? How are they different from normal pasta?

I think it's actually no-boil or oven ready? Basically, you don't have to cook the noodles before you bake them.

Yep, they just absorb the sauce when you bake them.

Shannon, I checked Cooking Light's website and I can't find any lasagna recipes with the no-boil that also show up as "freezeable"

Shannon, I make double batches of lasagna with no-boil noodles all the time, in order to freeze half.
I have a roasted vegetable lasagna thawing in the fridge right now for tomorrow night.
They always turn out great.

What's different about using penne instead of lasagne noodles?

Charity

you have to boil the penne. The dried pasta is much thicker than the no boil noodles. I have had no problem freezing lasagna using the no boil variety... could be that the ones here are a bit thicker than the Ronzoni.

Diana

I would prebake the lasagna with the no-boil noodles.. and then freeze!

I love making extra and eating it later!
My hubbie just thanked me for left over wild boar sauce!
I am going to make him some lasagna for when I go away..

Shannon, how about some eggplant parmesan too!
I just grill the eggplant instead of frying, the layer with a little bit of tomato sauce.and mozzerella and parmesan.

Funny...I made lasagna for y friends tonight!
I use the kind that say no boil, but boil them just the same for 1/2 minutes.
As usual, I realized that it was waaay too much for the 4 of us, so I made 2 smaller plates, one of which (as usual) I froze.

But I boiled the lesagne for 2 minutes!! And froze all unbaked.

All other times I did it it seemed just made and perfect.

I have used the no-boil lasagna and find that I need to double the number of sheets to get a good ratio of pasta to filling.

At times I even opt for not boiling the regular dried lasagna noodles. (just depends on my mood and the type of sauce I'm using) The only thing I find I need to adjust is the amount of sauce. I use more as the noodles tend to soak up liquid as they cook.

I have also found that using the regular noodles uncooked makes for better freezing. The seem to have a better consistency when cooked as opposed to when I boil them first and then freeze. I cook whatever filling ingredients I plan to use (meat, grilled veggies, etc.) and assemble the lasagna - cover with parchment paper then foil and freeze.

IMO if you cook the lasagna before freezing I don't think there is much difference when thawing and reheating --- no matter which type of pasta you use. In an earlier thread I wrote about making individual "tv dinners". The uncooked lasagna is also one of the things I make. It would be a real chore baking all of the meals in one day. I just assemble them uncooked and freeze.

Well, after all this I ended up doing the penne. But this is good to know for later. I still may end up making her lasagna!

Yesterday I made the Ragu Bolognese out of Marcella Hazan's Essentials book. Could that sauce have possibly taken longer? Geez. Anyhow today I am having lasagna with this sauce for lunch with my grandma, and tomorrow I am taking two types of lasagna to the L.A. GTG -the ragu one, and a mushroom one. Better be good with that eight hour sauce.

Ragù alla napoletana ('u rraù) is a eight hours sauce. Ragù alla bolognese only takes about a hour and a half! Ragù alla napoletana takes that long becahse the meat is left whole, and the long-cooking process allows all the juices and taste of the meat into the sauce. RAgù alla bolognese is essentially ground meat, with very little sauce (plus a ton of butter and this is one of the very few recipes that are supposed to use panna, but I prefer a couple of spoonfuls of whole milk), and it only cooks for that hour and a half, or two in the worst case. The longest-cooking meat recipe in that area (well, apart from Spalla Cotta di San Secondo) is stracotto, which is essential to make Parmesan anolini, and it is supposed to cook for four hours.
By the way. I make my own lasagne sheets , but I dn't really do it all the times, when I don't I always preboil the pasta. I freeze the lasagne after baking, and cut into portions. By cooking larger amounts in a single pan you allow the flavors to blend more. After letting the lasagne cool down and slightly congeal, cut them in single portions (or two people portions) and place them in individual containers for frezing and microwave eating. They are even better than just out of the oven

Diva: what? You are cooking your husband lasagne, freeze them so that he can heat them up for lunch? Have you turned THAT Italian?!

For me it's a religion, if I make lasagne I must have:
1) fresh, VERY thin lasagne noodles
2) always preboil max. 2 min
3) no ricotta, makes it soggy and heavy
4) 8 to 10 layers, each one with very little condiments, so that I am still eating pasta with a sauce and not a sauce with some pasta in it (the whole thing will be less than two inches thick)

This frezes wonderfully, both cooked and uncooked. Uncooked is actually better.

Alice, you'll have to argue with Marcella Hazan here. Why it took so long:

First you cook the soffrito and the meat a little. Not much time there.

Then you add milk, and simmer until it is evaporated, or absorbed into the meat. That took a couple plus hours.

THEN you add white wine, and simmer THAT until all the wine has evaporated. Two more hours, plus.

THEN you add tomatoes, and cook over the slowest possible simmer for AT LEAST 3 hours. That is how Marcella does it. The whole thing took almost eight hours. Most of that was cooking liquids down, so no biggie, but it kept me in the house all day.

It's a good sauce, but my basic standard sauce that I throw together in a couple of hours is good too. Marcella's was definitely more like the sauce you eat in Northern Italy though, and that is what I was striving for.

I made a double batch, and that is probably why it took so long.

Shannon, can I invite myself for dinner?

Ok, I am officially arguing with Marcella Hazan. First, cut the onion and make it in a soffritto with LOTS of butter and some prosciutto di Parma fat (if you don't have it, you can use pancetta: not smoked, not flavored). Add about a pound of meats: 2/3 minced beef and 1/3 fresh salame mixture or fresh salsiccia (again, not flavored, just a little pepper goes in the mixture). Brown it. Add 1/2 a glass of dry white wine, sfumalo, I can't translated this word, but while the heat is pretty strong pour it all at once and let it "smoke" away for about 5 minutes. Add two cups (more or less) of meat stock or warm water in which you dissolved about 10 cm (uhm... four inches) of concentrated tomato purée, simmer for an hour and a quarter, adding some stock if needed (the sauce must not be watery, it's basically meat and meat and meat with a little sauce and lots of fat, the color should be orange-brown, not red), add a spoon of fresh cream or two spoons milk, a large pinch of salt and a little black pepper. Simmer for five minutes more and you are done. The first part should take about 15-20 minutes, the cooking itself one hour and a quarter or slightly more. You can use a pressure pan for the central cooking, cutting times down to about 40 minutes, so you can make your ragù in slightly more than a hour. It's cheating, but I cheat when I can get away with it ^___^

I am sorry for Marcella Hazan, but Alice is absolutely right. However there is a Tuscan version that doesn't use milk at all(nor cream) some tomato more and maybe another hour of slow cooking. But more that 2 hours is not ragù.

My Napolitan Rraù is made with meat cubed in 1 inch squares (more or less, this is still italia)

Ok, this is how I do it.

I minced 2 onions and one leak. Put it in a large pan with olive oil. Let it cook slowly so it melts and doesn't caramelize. When onion is almost melted in a puree I add the meat in cubes -yesterday it was 1 kg of beaf "spezzatino"- I add a little salt and cover, fire is mild.
I stir at times and letting the pan covered I allow the meat releasing its juices.
When I see that pretty much my meat is covered by its juices I uncover the pan and let it reduce, the fire is lower now.
When all the juices are evaporated I add a glass of red wine -don't be cheap on the wine you use- when it is evaporated I add the passata di pomodoro - no concentrated tomato puree- yesterday it was 3 kg. Then I wait for it to boil, when it starts boil I lower the fire till it makes a bubble at the time (in Napoletano is PIPPITIARE), and let it go for about 5 hours, complexively starting from the beginning I started at 8 PM and ended up at 1AM.

The hours are odd, because I was waiting for DH to come back from Bassano del Grappa and I promised that I would wait awake, so...

This souce is very light at the end, and