I Almost Lost This Recipe Forever When They Stopped Printing It On The Box! Thank Goodness I Have One Box Left

This recipe for Italian Lasagna is a family favorite. A rich meat sauce, ricotta cheese, Mozzarella cheese, and Parmesan cheese marry together in this delicious traditional casserole. While veggie lasagna is delicious, I am a sucker for lasagna made with meat sauce.

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Creamette Back of the Box Italian Lasagna Recipe

My father-in-law absolutely loved my lasagna recipe. He’s been gone for a few years now, but I always think of him when I make it for dinner. I wish that I could take credit for putting this Italian Lasagna recipe together, but I can’t. Many years ago I had followed the recipe on the back of the Creamette lasagna box and was sold. However, each time I wanted to make it, I just looked at the back of the box, always throwing the one away before it.

One day I was in the grocery store picking up the noodles. I looked at the back of the box and it had a recipe for “Vegetable Lasagna” on the back. Oh no! I checked every box on the grocery store shelf, but alas, no “Italian Lasagna with Meat” recipe. ACK!

So I hoped and prayed that I still had a box in the cabinet. I was lucky, there was still half a box of noodles on my shelf at home, so I immediately cut the recipe off the box and taped it to a piece of paper. It’s tattered and sauce splattered, but it’s tried and true and holds a special place in my recipe binder.

That story is from several years ago when I first made this recipe. Since then I’ve made it over and over, this time using the printer-friendly version of the recipe.
Many people have come to this blog post and commented that they too lost this Creamette lasagna recipe, so I’m happy to share it here with you.

Classic Italian Lasagna

This Italian Lasagna comes from the back of the Creamette lasagna noodle box from years gone by. I’ve been making this lasagna recipe for over 20 years!

Ingredients

1/2 pound lasagna noodles OR 1 whole box Oven-Ready
1 lb Italian sausage
1/2 lb ground beef
1 cup onion chopped
2 cloves garlic minced
28 ounces tomatoes cut up (undrained)
12 ounces tomato paste
2 teaspoons sugar
2 teaspoons salt
1 1/2 teaspoons dried basil leaves
1/2 teaspoons fennel seed
1/4 teaspoons pepper
15 ounces of ricotta cheese
1 large egg beaten
1 tablespoon parsley flakes or 2 teaspoons fresh minced parsley
1/2 teaspoons salt
4 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
3/4 cup Parmesan cheese grated

Things You’ll Need

13×9 baking dish
Whisk
3.5 quart saute pan
Herb scissors

Instructions

Preheat oven to 375 F.
In a large skillet, combine Italian sausage, ground beef, onion, and garlic. Cook until sausage is no longer pink and onion is tender; drain. Stir in the next 7 ingredients. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat; simmer for 20 minutes.
Fill a baking pan with hot tap water and place the uncooked noodles into the water. Set aside.
In a medium bowl, blend ricotta, egg, parsley, and salt. Spoon 1 1/2 cups of meat sauce into a 13 x 9-inch baking dish. Layer one-third of each lasagna, meat sauce, ricotta mixture, Mozzarella cheese, and Parmesan cheese. Repeat layers two more times.
Cover with aluminum foil. Bake in preheated oven for 25 minutes.
Uncover, bake until hot and bubbly, about 20 minutes longer.
If the top is not browned enough, you can turn the temperature of the oven up to 500 F and bake for a few more minutes. Be sure to WATCH and check every couple of minutes as it will brown quickly!
Let stand for 10 minutes before cutting.

Expert Tips

If you are using regular lasagna noodles, use half of a box. If you are using oven-ready, use the whole box. This is based on using Creamette and the shape of their noodles. The oven-ready noodles are shorter and wider, therefore I layer them in the pan differently than I do the regular noodles. Watch the video and you’ll see me making this recipe with oven-ready noodles. The regular lasagna noodles are long and narrow and fit the full length of a 13×9 baking dish. You basically need about 12 noodles to make lasagna. A regular box of noodles will have about twice that many, while a box of no-boil noodles will have 12-14.