Recipes, guides and kitchen know-how. Mostly useful, occasionally silly.
Traditional Lasagne Recipe - The Bologna Way (and Why Yours Has a Lake in It)
Bologna's registered ragù made all-beef, six thin layers, a thin béchamel and a crisp Parmigiano top - plus the chef tricks that stop it sliding into a puddle when you cut it.
Made it? Rate it
- Prep1 hr
- Cook4 hr
- Rest20-30 min
- Serves8
There are two kinds of lasagne.
The first stands up on the plate in neat, thin layers, with a crisp golden top and corners people fight over.
The second slides off the spatula into a warm orange puddle and takes the rest of the dish with it.
We've all made the second one. Most of us called it rustic.
So I went to the people who'd know. Bologna.
Their official recipes. Their trattorias. Their pasta makers. Then the proper chefs, and the reader comments on the most-made versions online, to find out exactly where it all goes wrong.
This is the lasagne recipe that came out the other end.
One change from Bologna: no pork. It's an all-beef lasagne, so everyone round the table can have a slice. Bologna's own Alessandra Spisni, one of the city's best-known cookery teachers, uses beef as the only meat in her ragù, so we're in good company.
What Bologna would like you to know
In 2023, the Accademia Italiana della Cucina updated the officially registered recipe for ragù alla bolognese, lodged with Bologna's Chamber of Commerce. Yes, a sauce with paperwork.
The rules are short and strict. No garlic. No herbs. Not much tomato. It's a meat sauce, not a tomato sauce with meat in it.
The city's own tourism board publishes the traditional lasagne recipe that goes with it: lasagne verdi alla bolognese, with green spinach pasta, a thin film of béchamel and a lot of Parmigiano.
No mozzarella. No ricotta. Any Italian lasagne recipe with those in is from Naples, and Bologna would like that noted.
Most lasagne recipe UK kitchens grew up on goes the other way: thick sheets, a tin of tomatoes, a duvet of white sauce and a cheddar lid. Nice. Different dish.
Lasagne al forno just means "baked in the oven", by the way. Bologna's version is the one everyone else is copying.
What you need
For a 25 x 35cm dish, at least 6cm deep. Serves 8, or 6 if they've been to the gym.
For the ragù
- 450g beef chuck steak, diced very small by hand. This is the chefs' secret - more on that below.
- 450g beef mince, about 20% fat. Not lean. With no pork in here, the fat has to come from the beef.
- 40g butter and 3 tbsp olive oil. Chef's swap: a spoonful of beef dripping, or do what Fallow in London reportedly does and sweat the vegetables in melted beef bone marrow.
- 100g each onion, carrot and celery, chopped very fine by knife. A food processor turns them to mush.
- 250ml dry white wine, or more stock. Trattoria Anna Maria in Bologna leaves the wine out completely.
- 2 tbsp double-concentrated tomato paste
- 300g passata. That's all the tomato. Resist.
- 250ml whole milk
- 500-750ml hot beef stock, as needed
- Salt and black pepper
For the béchamel
- 80g butter
- 80g plain or 00 flour
- 1 litre whole milk, warmed
- A good grating of nutmeg and ½ tsp salt
To build
- 500g fresh egg lasagne sheets, green ones if you can find them
- 250g Parmigiano Reggiano, finely grated. Real Parmigiano is made with animal rennet, so pick a vegetarian hard cheese if that matters at your table.
- 60g butter, for the dish, the layers and the corners
Going meat-free?
- Swap all the beef for 900g frozen soya mince - the same weight. It takes on the ragù flavour better than you'd think.
- Use vegetable stock instead of beef stock.
- Soya has no fat of its own, so be generous with the butter and olive oil when you soften the vegetables.
- No need to brown it in batches - stir it straight in with the vegetables for 5 minutes.
- Simmer for about an hour, not three. It's already tender, and the long cook only turns it to mush.
- Use a vegetarian hard cheese instead of the Parmigiano.
Bologna has been informed. Bologna is not taking calls.
How to make it
1. Make the ragù - and take your time
- Melt the butter with the oil in a wide, heavy pan. Add the onion, carrot and celery and cook gently for about 15 minutes, until soft and sweet but not brown.
- In a second, very hot pan, brown the beef in batches. Brown, not grey. Crowd the pan and it steams. Tip each batch in with the vegetables.
- Pour in the wine (or a ladle of stock) and bubble until it has completely gone.
- Push the meat to one side, add the tomato paste to the fat and fry it for 2 minutes until it darkens. Stir in the passata and a ladle of stock.
- Turn the heat right down. Lid half on. Barely simmer for 3 hours, adding stock a ladle at a time whenever it looks dry. Stir in the milk halfway through.
- For the last 20 minutes, lid off. Cook it down until a spoon dragged through the middle leaves a clean line.
- Season now, properly. Go slightly under on the salt - the Parmigiano brings plenty.
Italians have a saying: "il ragù rapido non esiste". Quick ragù doesn't exist.
I tried to find out if that was true. It is.
No lake. The number one lasagne crime, in Bologna and in reader reviews online, is a wet one. Too-runny ragù or too much béchamel, and it collapses into a puddle when you cut it. Reduce the ragù until the spoon line stays clean, and keep the béchamel thin. A lasagne should stand, not swim.
The chef's finish: Fallow reportedly balance their ragù with red wine vinegar and sugar at the end. A small splash and a pinch, tasting as you go, cuts through all that richness.
2. Make the béchamel
- Melt the butter, stir in the flour and cook for 2 minutes without letting it colour.
- Take it off the heat and whisk in the warm milk a splash at a time. Slowly at first and you won't get lumps.
- Back on the heat, simmer gently, whisking, until it coats the back of a spoon. Add the nutmeg and salt.
The best white sauce for lasagne is pourable, not stodgy. It's there to bind the layers, not bury them.
3. Get the pasta ready
- Bring a big pan of well-salted water to the boil.
- Cook the sheets a few at a time and lift each one out as soon as it floats - 30 to 60 seconds.
- Drop them into a bowl of cold salted water, then lay them flat on clean tea towels.
Using dried sheets? Soak them in warm salted water for 20-30 minutes instead, and leave the ragù a touch looser. Dried pasta drinks a lot.
Feeling brave? Make your own green sheets: 500g 00 flour, 2 eggs and 3 yolks, and 250g cooked spinach squeezed bone dry. Our adjustable rolling pin has a 1.6mm ring, which is about the thickness Bologna's famous Sorelle Simili pasta school rolls to. Even sheets, no ruler, no tears.
4. Build it - thin and many
- Butter the dish. No baking paper - the crust needs the dish.
- Spread a thin film of béchamel over the base.
- Layer: pasta, a thin even layer of ragù, a thin film of béchamel, a handful of Parmigiano, a few flakes of butter. Prick each sheet 3 or 4 times with a cocktail stick so air can escape.
- Repeat until you have 6 layers.
- Finish with pasta, the last of the béchamel loosened with a spoonful of ragù, a generous blanket of Parmigiano, butter flakes, and a knob of butter in each corner. That's where the crunchy bits come from.
That's the whole secret to lasagne layers: lots of thin ones, never a few fat ones. Thick layers trap sauce, and trapped sauce becomes the lake.
5. Chill it, bake it, rest it
- If you can, cover it and chill it overnight. It settles and firms up and slices far cleaner. In the Marche, their version is traditionally built the day before, and restaurants chill theirs before slicing too.
- Take it out of the fridge 30 minutes before baking. Heat the oven to 180C (160C fan, gas 4).
- Bake covered with foil for 20 minutes, then uncovered for 20-25 minutes, until it's bubbling at the edges and piping hot in the middle.
- Finish with 3-5 minutes at 240C or under the grill for a golden top and crunchy corners.
- Rest for at least 20 minutes, 30 if you can, before you cut it. Giorgio Locatelli and Lidia Bastianich both swear by a long rest.
So how long to cook lasagne? About 45 minutes from the fridge, or 30-35 if you've just built it. Go by the bubbling edges and a hot centre, not the clock.
Not sure the middle is hot? The probe you use on a Sunday roast settles it in seconds.
Cutting it like a restaurant
Restaurants get those tall, clean slices by cheating, slightly. They bake it, chill it, slice it cold, then heat each slice.
At home: make it a day ahead, cut it straight from the fridge, then reheat the portions covered in a hot oven until they're piping hot all the way through.
It also means you can serve lasagne at a dinner party and still be in the room.
Leftovers go in the fridge once cooled, ideally within a couple of hours. The Food Standards Agency has clear advice on chilling, freezing and defrosting food safely.
What the chefs say
Before this went up, I put it in front of a panel of 20 serious chefs. Well, the ones who've published a lasagne. They were very quiet about it.
Here's what they agree on.
Chop, don't mince. Angela Hartnett puts it plainly: "When Italians make a lasagne they use chopped steak, not mince." Massimo Bottura hand-dices his too. That's why half our beef is hand-diced chuck.
Simmer slowly. Really slowly. Marcella Hazan wanted "the laziest of simmers, with just an intermittent bubble breaking through the surface."
Keep it simple. Evan Funke, who learned his pasta in Bologna, on what goes in: "It's bechemella, ragu Bolognese, Parmigiano-Reggiano and pasta. And that's it."
Season before it goes in the oven. Gordon Ramsay: "You cannot season that thing after it's cooked."
Two optional tricks if you're chasing extra depth. Heston Blumenthal caramelises his onions with a star anise for a meatier flavour - fish it out before the meat goes in. And Kenji López-Alt adds a few drops of fish sauce. Nobody will taste fish. They'll just ask what you did.
None of these chefs has anything to do with Oliver's Kitchen. We just read their homework.
If it goes wrong
Sliding about in a puddle? The ragù was too wet, or the béchamel too generous.
Fix: reduce the ragù until the spoon line stays clean, keep the béchamel to a thin film, and rest it for the full 20-30 minutes.
Dry and stodgy? Usually lean mince, or dried sheets that drank all the sauce.
Fix: 20% fat beef, and if you're using dried sheets, soak them first and keep the ragù a little looser.
Bland? The ragù was rushed, or under-seasoned. Three hours is three hours.
Fix: brown the beef properly, fry the tomato paste dark, give it the full simmer, and taste at the end with a grinder you trust to hand.
Too salty? The most common complaint about the most-made lasagnes online.
Fix: season the ragù lightly - stock and Parmigiano both bring salt - and adjust only once it's all together.
Top burnt, middle cold? Straight from the fridge into a hot oven, uncovered.
Fix: let it sit out for 30 minutes, keep the foil on for the first 20, and only blast the heat at the very end.
Serve it with a crisp green salad and not much else.
Garlic bread is allowed. Garlic in the ragù is not. Bologna was very clear.
Now go and cook something.
