The 4-Ingredient Dinner I've Made Hundreds of Times

It’s an easy take on a comfort food classic.

Traditional lasagna tends to have many ingredients and takes hours to prepare, especially when made from scratch. While my family loves the layers of rich meaty sauce, creamy ricotta, and tender noodles all topped with more cheese, they also gobble up basic jarred marinara and store-bought ravioli with the same enthusiasm.

After many frequent requests for lasagna on weeknights, I started riffing on the layered noodle dish by swapping the lasagna noodles and ricotta with fresh cheese ravioli. Now this 4-ingredient ravioli lasagna is one of my family’s most requested dinner recipes.

The idea is simple: layer cheese ravioli in a baking dish alternating with marinara sauce and top the whole thing with cheese. A few years ago, I started adding Italian sausage to the sauce for more flavor and to help stretch the family-sized pack of ravioli that my kids were routinely devouring.

The ravioli cooks as the whole dish bakes in the oven (no need to boil) so most of the cooking is hands-off. The result is a casserole that has all the flavors of slow-cooked Sunday lasagna but with a time commitment that makes it realistic for a Wednesday during the school year.

How To Make My 4-Ingredient Ravioli Lasagna

To make six to eight servings, you’ll need:

• Nonstick spray

• 1 pound mild Italian sausage

• 1 (24-ounce) jar marinara sauce

• 1 (20-ounce) package fresh cheese ravioli, such as Buitoni or Rana

• 1 cup shredded Italian cheese blend

Heat the oven to 400°F. Coat a 9x13-inch baking dish with nonstick spray.

Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the sausage and cook, breaking it up with a spatula and stirring regularly, until cooked through, about eight minutes. Add the marinara sauce and cook until warmed through, two minutes longer. Remove the pan from the heat to cool for two to three minutes.

Spread 1/2 cup of the sausage mixture into the bottom of the prepared pan—layer on a quarter of the ravioli in a single layer. Continue layering the sausage sauce mixture with the ravioli, making three layers of ravioli and a final layer of sauce. Sprinkle on the Italian cheese blend.

Cover the dish with foil and bake for 30 minutes. Remove the foil and bake for an additional 10 to 15 minutes until the cheese is lightly browned and the sauce is bubbly.

I usually serve this lasagna with roasted vegetables since the oven is already on (broccoli or green beans in my house) but a green salad and garlic bread would be perfect paired with this dish.

Some Tips for Making Ravioli Lasagna Your Family’s Favorite

After making this shortcut lasagna hundreds of times, here are a few things I’ve learned:

• So much of this dish’s flavor is built at the grocery store. My family loves Rao’s basic marinara but grab your favorite roasted garlic marinara or arrabbiata sauce. You could even shortcut this further with a jar of bolognese sauce.

• Fresh ravioli are easy to find and bake up a little bit faster, but this same recipe works just as well with frozen ravioli. Don’t boil the frozen ravioli—they can thaw slightly on the counter while you cook the sausage. Then, build the lasagna as directed. Bake for 30 minutes covered and then bake uncovered for 20 minutes (five additional minutes), and enjoy.

• You can also build this lasagna up to three days in advance. Give the sausage and sauce a few minutes of extra cooling time before building the lasagna, and cover the whole pan before storing it in the fridge. Remove the dish from the refrigerator while the oven preheats and bake as directed.

Read the original article on Simply Recipes.