Fifteen years ago, I married into an Italian American family and quickly realized that every tender memory involved a very loud and full table and plates of cheesy lasagna. I make the family’s heirloom recipe for special occasions, but for those nights in between, I tend to tinker with the recipe. (I’m a recipe developer, after all.)
So far, my favorite iteration has got to be lasagna roll-ups. This classic dinner includes the same tender sheets of pasta, meaty marinara sauce, and creamy ricotta filling, but it’s more fun to make and much easier to serve because every person gets their own saucy spiral. Here’s how to do it.
Key Ingredients in Lasagna Roll-Ups
- Marinara sauce: Choose a good-quality store-bought sauce or make marinara from scratch.
- Mozzarella cheese: Pick up pre-shredded or shred your own mozzarella cheese. Look for the blocks of low-moisture mozzarella, not the rounds of fresh mozzarella for this recipe.
- Parmesan cheese: The salty, funky flavor of Parmesan cheese can’t be beat. Add half of the grated Parmesan cheese to the ricotta filling and save the rest for topping the lasagna roll-ups.
- Ricotta cheese: Whole-milk ricotta cheese has a creamy texture. Avoid lower-fat options, which have a rubbery consistency.
- Egg: A single egg adds richness to the ricotta cheese filling and helps give it some structure so that the cheese doesn’t slide out of the pasta spirals.
- Lasagna noodles: This recipe was developed with regular dried lasagna noodles, not no-boil.
- Onion and garlic: Sauteed onion and garlic is the secret to adding homemade flavor to store-bought marinara sauce.
- Ground beef: Use lean ground beef so that you don’t have to drain off excess fat. Ground turkey (not ground turkey breast) can be substituted.
Tips for Making Lasagna Roll-Ups
- Stack noodles between parchment paper. Boiled lasagna noodles really want to stick together once they are drained.
- Arrange the noodles so they are ready to roll by filling a rimmed baking sheet with a single layer of noodles. Top with parchment paper, add another layer of lasagna noodles, and repeat.
- Form an assembly line. Place the ricotta mixture and beefy marinara sauce nearby, then add the fillings to the cooked lasagna noodles assembly-line style. This is also a really great time for kids to help with preparing dinner.
- Begin baking covered with foil. Cover the roll-ups with aluminum foil to trap some of the heat inside the casserole dish and to avoid over-browning the cheese.
