Christmas Lasagna
Christmas Lasagna is everyone’s favorite Italian comfort food made festive for the holidays with the addition of red and green bell peppers for an extra shot of flavor and holiday color.
When you think of holiday food, you probably think of turkey, ham, and lots of sweets. What you might not think of is lasagna, but we’re hoping we change that today with this delicious lasagna recipe.
Lasagna is such a popular dish for the holidays, we love having it on Christmas. It is always a popular recipe when the holidays roll around. This Christmas Lasagna is full of sausage, ricotta, and mozzarella cheese. It is my favorite because you make it ahead and pop it in the fridge until you are ready to bake making it the perfect make-ahead holiday dish.
Table of contents
❤️ Why You’ll Love This Recipe
- It’s an easy recipe that everyone always loves.
- Lasagna is always a crowd-pleaser.
- It’s loaded with sausage, cheese, and sauce.
- It only uses simple ingredients.
🛒Ingredients
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This is basically just a classic lasagna recipe to which bell peppers have been added for extra color. The main ingredients are below, but you’ll find the complete list of ingredients along with amounts in the recipe card at the end of the post.
- Italian sausage
- Jarred spaghetti sauce or homemade
- Ricotta cheese
- Parmesan cheese
- Lasagna noodles
- Shredded mozzarella cheese
- Shredded fresh mozzarella cheese
- Red and green bell peppers
🔪 How to Make Christmas Lasagna
This is an easy recipe that everyone can make. It’s classic lasagna, so it doesn’t take much to make it!
Step 1: Make the Meat Sauce
Brown the Italian sausage in a pan. Then drain and return to the pan. Add the spaghetti sauce, then pour 1/2 cup of water into the jar and shake to get out the extra sauce. Pour into the pan. Stir and simmer. (we make our own but any jarred sauce you like would be fine)
Step 2: Make the Cheese Filling
Combine the ricotta cheese and eggs in a medium bowl and stir until blended.
Step 3: Construct the Lasagna
Add a thin layer of sauce to the bottom of a greased 9×13 baking dish. Then add a layer of uncooked noodles. Top with half of the ricotta cheese mixture and sprinkle with half of the pre-shredded mozzarella. Then top with half the sauce.
Add another layer of noodles, then the rest of the ricotta and the pre-shredded mozzarella. Top with another layer of noodles and add the rest of the sauce.
Finally, top with the freshly-shredded mozzarella, green bell pepper slices, and chopped red bell pepper. Cover tightly with a lightly greased sheet of foil and refrigerate for 3 hours.
Step 4: Bake
Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes, then uncover and continue baking for another 30 minutes. Let rest for 10 minutes, then garnish with parsley and serve.
📝Variations
Do you want to change up this recipe and make it your own? Here are some ways that you can do that!
- Italian Sausage: Use ground beef, hot Italian sausage, or even breakfast sausage instead.
- Red Bell Pepper: Try using sun-dried tomatoes instead.
- Green Bell Pepper: Spinach can be used in place of green bell peppers.
Check out this cheesy chicken spinach lasagna for a different take on this classic dish!
🥄 Equipment
You’ll only need a few basic kitchen items to make this recipe.
- Pan
- Mixing bowls
- Baking dish
- Foil
🥫 Storage
Store this lasagna covered in the refrigerator for up to 3 days. For longer storage, you can freeze it for up to 3 months in an air-tight, freezer-safe container or in its original dish wrapped in a double layer of plastic wrap and a layer of foil.
💭 Tips
This is a fairly straightforward recipe. There really isn’t a lot that can go wrong with it. That being said, we just have a couple of things to remember here.
- Use regular lasagna noodles for this recipe, not no-boil lasagna.
- Always grease your baking dish so every last bit of this lasagna comes out easily.
⁉️ FAQ
Do you have questions about this recipe? Here are the answers to the most commonly asked questions.
It’s actually considered both a casserole and a pasta bake.
A lot of people do, but it’s not necessary at all. The moisture in the layers added to the lasagna will allow the noodles to cook while the dish bakes.
Some people claim that the dish can be traced back to Greece or England, but most food historians agree that the dish as we know it originated in Naples, Italy in the Middle Ages.
🍽 More Recipes
Do you enjoy pasta? Then try these delicious recipes:
- Unstuffed Shells Casserole
- Instant Pot Spaghetti and Meat Sauce
- Chicken Broccoli Alfredo Stuffed Shells
📌 PIN IT!!
🧾Recipe Card
Want to make this recipe? Print the recipe card below, or pin this recipe, so you can find it later.
Christmas Lasagna
Equipment
- Pan
- mixing bowls
- Baking dish
- Foil
Ingredients
- 1 pound italian sausage
- 24 ounces spaghetti sauce
- ½ cup water
- 32 ounces ricotta cheese
- 2 eggs
- ⅓ cup grated parmesan cheese
- 16 ounces lasagna noodles
- 2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
- 16 ounces block fresh mozzarella cheese shredded
- 1 small green bell pepper sliced
- 1 small red bell pepper chopped
- Parsley for garnish
Instructions
- In a saucepan brown and drain the grease from your sausage.
- Add the spaghetti sauce to the pan with the sausage.
- Put the ½ cup of water in the spaghetti sauce jar and shake it to get out the extra sauce.
- Pour that into the pan with the sausage as well.
- Stir the meat with the sauce to combine.
- In a medium bowl combine the ricotta cheese with the 2 eggs and stir until well mixed.
- Spoon a little sauce in the bottom of a greased 9×13 baking dish. Just enough to thinly cover the bottom.
- Lay of layer of your UNCOOKED noodles in the pan.
- Spoon half of the ricotta mixture over the noodles making sure each noodle is covered.
- Next sprinkle over half the pre shredded mozzarella cheese.
- Next spoon over half the sauce and spread over the cheese layer.
- Next do a layer of noodles again.
- Add the other half of the ricotta.
- The rest of the pre shredded mozzarella.
- Another layer of noodles.
- Then add the rest of your sauce.
- Next top the dish with all of your shredded fresh mozzarella.
- Top it with the green bell pepper slices and the chopped red bell pepper.
- Cover the pan with a lightly greased piece of foil.
- Refrigerate the lasagna for 3 hours or up to 24 hours.
- When you are ready to bake the lasagna place it covered in a preheated 350 degree oven for 30 minutes.
- After 30 minutes is up uncover it and bake for another 30 minutes.
- Let the lasagna rest for 10 minutes before cutting into it.
- Garnish with parsley and serve!
- Grease a loaf pan.
- In a large bowl, combine your cake mix, milk, oil, eggs and cinnamon.
- Stir in your grated apples.
- Pour this mixture into your loaf pan.
- In a medium bowl combine the melted butter, sugar, brown sugar and flour together with a fork until it forms large crumbs.
- Sprinkle this over the cake batter in pan.
- Bake 50 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.
- Cool 10 minutes.
- Carefully remove the cake from the pan onto a cooling rack and cool completely.
- Serve!
