Soul Food Cheesy Lasagna Recipe

Salt and pepper the meat. It is better to use your hands to combine the salt/pepper, onion and meat before cooking. Brown the ground beef, Italian sausage, onions and garlic in a pot until they start to cook. It takes about 6 to 9 minutes to brown the meat. Use a medium low temperature to brown the meat. Do not cook the meat completely. Drain and remove the grease from the meat once it is finished browning. Combine crushed tomatoes, tomato sauce and tomato paste into a large pot with fresh basil and oregano (gently stir these seasoning into the sauce). After mixed combine with meat. Cover the pot and let the meat sauce simmer. Simmer on low heat for 30 minutes or until the meat appears fully cooked. I will sometimes make this sauce and refrigerate it after it finishes simmering. You can cook meat sauce the next day to put the rest of this recipe together. For some reason Italian meat sauce taste even better the next day. But that's up to you. Mix the egg, parsley and ricotta cheese, while your lasagna noodles are cooking. Cook the noodles on medium low heat until the texture of the noodles is almost soft and flimsy. Use a 9 by 13 inch baking pan. Spread 2 cups of meat sauce on the bottom of the pan. Remove your lasagna noodles out of the water bath. Shake water off wet noodles. Lay 6 noodles across the layer of sauce. Spread half of the ricotta cheese mixture over the layer of noodles. Spread 1/2 of the mozzarella cheese over the ricotta layer. Sprinkle/layer half of the Parmesan cheese, sharp and mild cheddar and the mozzarella cheese. Spread 2 cups of meat sauce over the cheese layer. Lay down the next layer of noodles. Spread the remaining ricotta mixture over noodles. Spread the mozzarella,Parmesan, sharp and mild cheddar cheese, saving some cheese for the top of the lasagna. Put the last layer of meat sauce on the cheeses. Sprinkle the remaining cheese on top. Salt and pepper the top layer. Cover with foil. Bake in preheated oven at 350° for 25 minutes. Remove foil and bake uncovered for another 25 minutes or until cheese is bubbly and golden.