In my experience, most people seem to think lasagna is a hard dish to make.  It’s not.

Here is an easy lasagna recipe that you can throw together in less than an hour.  Easily serves up to 4 people, often with a little lasagna leftover.

Lasagna Ingredients:

• 9 large lasagna noodles
• 1 can/jar of spaghetti sauce
• grated mozzarella cheese (Note: practically any kind of cheese will work, but traditional mozzarella cheese is the best).
• 1 pound ground turkey OR 1 bag frozen vegetables (optional)
• Oregano, Garlic, Sweet Basil, Marjoram, and Crushed Red Pepper (optional)

The Process:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
2. Boil a large pot of water on your stove top on the highest heat setting possible (Be careful!)
3. Once the water is boiling, place lasagna noodles in the pot, and let them boil for a few minutes.
   
4. If you’re using ground turkey, defrost and brown your meat while your noodles boil (Tip: Ground turkey is cheaper than ground beef).  If you’re using frozen vegetables, defrost them in a saucepan on medium heat for a few minutes.
   
5. In a saucepan, mix your spaghetti sauce with the browned meat/defrosted vegetables.  Cook on medium heat.
   
6. Add spices to taste. Garlic, marjoram, oregano, and sweet basil are all staples of Italian cooking, and will give good flavor to your lasagna; I like to add a little crushed red pepper to give the lasagna some kick, but that’s entirely up to you.
   
7. Let the sauce simmer on medium heat, stirring regularly so as not to let it burn or boil over.
8. When the noodles are soft and pliable, pour them into a colander in the sink, and let them cool.
   

That’s all the preparation you need to do, and you can easily accomplish all of this in less than half an hour.  Now all we need to do is layer our lasagna, and pop it in the oven.

1. Lightly coat the inside of a 9″x13″ casserole dish with a little bit of our spaghetti sauce (it doesn’t take much–just enough to keep the lasagna from sticking).
2. Layer 3 noodles inside the casserole dish.
   
3. Spoon a little bit of our meat/veggie sauce on top of the noodles.
4. Sprinkle some mozzarella cheese on top of the sauce.
5. Repeat this process 2 more times, until all 9 noodles are used. Pour any remaining sauce on top of the lasagna, and add a little cheese to the top.
   
6. Pop it in the oven for 30 minutes, or until the top begins to brown and the cheese starts to bubble.
   
7. Pull it out, let it cool for a minute, and enjoy.

While the lasagna is cooking, you can kick back and relax or you can make some garlic bread.  Garlic bread is by no means complicated, and makes a nice addition to lasagna or spaghetti.

Easy Garlic Bread Recipe

1. Butter a few slices of bread.
2. Sprinkle garlic powder on them.

3-Step Garlic Bread Recipe

1. Toast a few slices of bread.
2. Butter each slice as soon as it comes out of the toaster (while it’s still hot).
3. Sprinkle garlic powder on the buttered toast.

Garlic Bread Loaf

1. In a small bowl, mix butter with garlic powder. This makes garlic butter.
2. Butter a loaf of bread with the garlic butter.  You can slice the loaf in half and butter the insides; you can slice it into bite-size pieces and butter each one; you can smear butter on the outside of the loaf.  It’s entirely up to you.
3. Heat the loaf of bread in the oven for a few minutes–just long enough to warm the bread and melt the butter.

A family-size frozen lasagna costs anywhere from $12 on up.  You can easily make this family-size lasagna for $7 or less; the biggest variable is the price of the sauce, and if you season it yourself, cheap sauce will work just fine.

The cool thing about this lasagna recipe is that it easily becomes a vegetarian lasagna simply by substituting vegetables for the ground turkey; in fact, the vegetarian version of this recipe is actually cheaper if you make it with frozen vegetables! But whether you’re using ground turkey, frozen veggies, fresh produce, or tofu, this lasagna recipe is very versatile, very easy, and very affordable. That’s a combination that simply can’t be beat.