Lasagna Rollups Are Such a Fun Upgrade on the Classic Dish (2024)

On Saturday’s episode of my Food Network show, I cooked a handful of recipes for Edna Mae, my husband’s wonderful, perfect, lovely grandmother. All the dishes were freezer-friendly, and I broke them all up into smaller, single-serving portions so Edna Mae could just pull them out when she needed them. This is perfect for one or two-person households, because you can just grab the amount you need for that meal (and possibly a leftover snack after the fact) rather than bake off an entire casserole and be forced to eat leftovers all week. (Not that leftovers are bad! I wouldn’t turn ’em down. But I love food, man.)

One of the recipes I made on Saturday’s show show were Lasagna Rollups. I actually did a Vegetable Lasagna version based on my regular Veggie Lasagna recipe, and they really were delicious. Yesterday, however, I made a regular, meaty version for my carnivorous family. And even though we’re a household of six, I went ahead and broke them up into smaller portions so we’d have more flexibility during the next week. This way, if someone gets a hankerin’ for meaty lasagna, they can just pull one out, stick it in the oven, and go to town.

Here’s how I made mine yesterday, but keep in mind you can use any lasagna recipe you love! Just roll the cheesy filling inside the noodles as shown below, place them in a pan (small or large, depending on your needs), and top them with whatever sauce you want.

First, mince up some garlic…

And dice up an onion.

Then heat up a pot, add some olive oil, and violently throw them both in.

Stir them around and let them cook for a couple of minutes…

Then throw in zee meat! I did a mix of ground beef and Italian sausage, but you can use all beef, all sausage, you can sub regular pork breakfast sausage for Italian sausage, you can add diced pepperoni, you can sub ground turkey for the ground beef…anything!

Add salt and pepper…

And cook the meat until it’s totally brown. If there’s excess grease, drain it off iffin’ you want!

And iffin’ you don’t want? Don’t. But your cardiologist will be mad at you.

Now add in a big can of diced tomatoes…

And a big can of tomato paste.

Mince up some fresh parsley and basil…

And throw it in.

If you haven’t noticed, there’s a great deal of throwing in this recipe.

Now just stir it all together, then turn down the heat and simmer it for a good 30 minutes or so!

And while the sauce is a-simmerin’, boil the noodles until they’re al dente…

Then, after you drain them, lay them flat on a piece of foil so they’ll be nice and straight and cooperative and compliant.

Now, just make the cheesy filling: This is whole milk ricotta, but you can use part skim ricotta if you have more common sense than I do. You can also use cottage cheese instead of ricotta, which I always do in the lasagna I’ve made for the past eleventy hundred years. Basically, any weird, white, soft, slightly runny cheese will do.

Next, crack in a couple of eggs…

And some Parmesan cheese.

Stir it around until it’s all combined, then stir in salt and pepper…

And add some more basil and parsley.

The final element you need to prepare is the mozzarella! I’m using the fresh/bright white stuff, but you can also use the regular storebought Americanized mozzarella, too. The lasagna rollups are delicious either way.

Just grate up the cheese…and now it’s time to build the suckers!

Get the pans ready first. These are disposable (or reusable; just wash them out with warm, soapy water) foil loaf pans. I thought of using the mini-loaf pans for even smaller portions, but they’re just so…so…diminutive. With these regular ones, each pan will hold about 4 rollups, which could be a big serving for one person, two regular-sized serving for two people, or two different meals for one person!

I have no idea what I just said.

By now the sauce is ready!

So grab a small amount…

And spread it onto the bottom of each pan.

Next, get a good spoonful of the ricotta filling…

Spread it onto one of the noodles…

Roll it up…

And place it in the pan, right on top of the sauce.

Repeat it with three more noodles…

Then spoon a good layer of sauce over the top.

Sprinkle on a nice amount of mozzarella and a sprinkling of Parmesan…then just repeat with all the other ingredients until you have 5-6 pans of rollups!

Cover them with foil and freeze them, or go ahead and bake them right away. (These are the ones I made for the show; it’s fun to see them all assembled! Oh, and you can double the recipe to make a whole, whole bunch.)

If you’re baking it straight away, bake it at 375 for about 20 minutes, or until hot and bubbly. If you’re baking it from a frozen state, stick it in a 350 oven, still covered in foil, for about 30 minutes. Then take off the foil and let it bake for another 10-15 minutes, until bubbly.

Then just serve up as many rollups as you need. One for little kiddos, four for big, burly, strapping, handsome, active, virile cowboys.

Sorry about the virile part there.

This is two rollups, which is the size of a nice, big square of lasagna. Perfect!

Sprinkle on a little more parsley and basil…

And just dig right in. I love the rollups, because they make it easy to serve up a variety of sizes of lasagna helpings—anywhere from one rollup to four.

And they freeze beautifully.

And they just happen to be delicious.