Valentine's Day Lasagna

Every year for Valentine's Day, Tim and I make dinner together. We ship the girls off to some friends and enjoy a meal together full of adult conversation. Last year I came across this amazing lasagna recipe, I wanted to share the site with you but I can't find it anymore. It was so good, we decided to do it again this year. I think it's going to be a tradition for us.

1 pound of sweet Italian sausage
1 pound of ground beef
1/2 cup of chopped onions
2 cloves of garlic chopped

Brown the ground beef, Italian sausage, onions and garlic in a pot until they start to cook. It takes about 6 to 9 minutes to brown the meat. I like to use a Dutch oven to cook this portion of the recipe. I use a medium low temperature to brown the meat.


1 (28 ounce) can of crushed tomatoes
2 (8 ounce) cans of tomato sauce
2 (6 ounce) cans of tomato paste
1/2 cup of water
Gently stir this into the cooking meat.


2 tablespoons white sugar
2 teaspoons fresh Basil leaves chopped (I used dried)
2 tablespoons fresh Italian parsley chopped (I used dried)
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon Italian Seasoning
1/2 teaspoon ground pepper
Gently stir these seasoning into the sauce.

Cover the pot and let the meat sauce simmer. Simmer on low heat for 1 hour and 30 minutes This is the ideal simmer time but not mandatory. If you don’t have time it will still be great after one hour of simmering.
I will sometimes make this sauce and refrigerate it after it finishes simmering. I will use the meat sauce the next day to put the rest of this recipe together. For some reason Italian meat sauce taste even better the next day. But that’s up to you. (I think this is the key!)


Soak 12 lasagna noodles.
The lasagna noodles need to be soaked in hot tap water for 15 minutes.
While the noodles are soaking you can make the cheese filling. (For me, this leaves the noodles too chewy...next time I'll probably boil them)

Put the following in a mixing bowl:
23 ounces of ricotta cheese.

1/2 teaspoon fresh grated nutmeg
Grate fresh nutmeg over the Ricotta cheese.

Add the following:
1 egg2 tablespoons fresh Italian parsley chopped (I used dried)
Mix these ingredients together with a spoon

Now we start building the lasagna layers.
Use a 9×13 inch baking pan. Spread 2 Cups of meat sauce on the bottom of the pan.

Remove your lasagna noodles out of the water bath. Shake water off wet noodles.
Lay 6 noodles across the layer of sauce.

Spread half of the ricotta cheese mixture over the layer of noodles.

Spread 1/2 of the mozzarella cheese over the ricotta layer. Sprinkle half of the Parmesan cheese over the mozzarella layer.

Spread 2 cups of meat sauce over the cheese layer

Lay down the next layer of noodles. Spread the remaining ricotta mixture over noodles. Spread the mozzarella and Parmesan cheeses saving some cheese for the top of the lasagna. Put the last layer of meat sauce on the cheeses. Sprinkle the remaining cheese on top.
It should look similar to the picture above.

Cover with foil. Bake in preheated oven at 350 F (177 C) for 25 minutes. Remove foil and bake uncovered for another 25 minutes.

Remove from oven and allow to cool for approximately 15 minutes.

DELICIOUS!