A few weeks ago my brother and sister-in-law and their three wonderful kiddos came to visit. It was an absolute blast! In preparing for their visit, I needed to come up with a big filling meal that would fit in a not-so-big budget. See, my brother has a bit of a reputation for how much he can eat. So I knew it needed to be filling. Also, I wanted it to be something that I could make ahead of time. That way I could spend the little bit of time we had with them, actually with them, and not in the kitchen. I decided to make my mother-in-law’s lasagna. Super yummy, super filling, super inexpensive!
Ingredients:
1 lb ground beef
1/2 lb italian sausage
1 – 13oz tomato sauce
2 1/2 cup tomatoes
2 cloves minced garlic
1 Tb parsely
1 tsp basil
1 tsp oregano
1 – 16oz ricotta cheese
2 cups shredded mozzarella
oven ready lasagna noodles
Step 1:
Combine meats, brown in skillet, drain
Step 2:
Add next 6 ingredients, bring to boil, then reduce heat and simmer 30-45 minutes
Step 3:
Layer in 9 x 13: noodles, ricotta cheese, meat sauce, mozzarella. Repeat until all ingredients are used
Step 4:
Bake 350 for 30 minutes
Now let’s talk about the ingredients. I doubled the recipe for our specific needs. I also skipped the sausage and increased the ground beef to make up for it. The garlic is minced from a jar. I used italian seasoning instead of the individual herbs. I bought everything but the lasagna noodles at Aldi. The noodles I bought at Walmart. Here’s the price breakdown:
Tomato sauce .75
Diced tomatoes 1.77
Garlic .08
Ground beef 9.22
Ricotta 3.58
Mozzarella 3.69
Noodles 1.68
Total: 20.77 for 24 servings, .87 per serving!
Please note that this is for 12 servings in each 9 x 13 pan. These servings were pretty small. Good for the kids, but the adults had at least 2 servings.
