We have picky eaters at our house. I know, I know, it’s probably all my fault, but after multiple vomiting episodes at the dinner table I stopped forcing people to try one bite of everything. And while the older boys are doing a much better job trying and liking new foods these days, we still have a somewhat limited repetoir of dinner items everyone will eat. Lasagne happens to be one of them. Unfortunately, when the temperature outside starts climbing into the 90s and above I simply can’t stand to turn on the oven for an hour and a half, so we usually take a bit of a lasagne break over the summer. But not this summer! I recently discovered that my normal old lasagne recipe performs superbly in the crockpot – some of us even prefer it. If I happen to have cooked ground beef in the freezer I can get everything ready to go in under 15 minutes just before lunch, and by 6 pm we have a delicious dinner everyone will eat with nary a gag and a nice cool kitchen. Perfect.
Our lasagne is a very basic (read: easy & fast) recipe using jarred spaghetti sauce, which I know is sacrilege to some. If you want to substitute your own homemade sauce it should be pretty simple to do so. Also, there’s no need to precook your noodles OR to use oven ready lasagne noodles – the normal old kind soften up nicely in the slow cooker. I do use more sauce than usual in this recipe since the noodles suck up quite a bit of the moisture, but that leaves the lasagne with a lot of flavor. It cuts and serves beautifully.
NOTE: Please be sure NOT to use no-boil or oven-ready noodles, as they will get too mushy. Normal lasagne noodles work perfectly!
As usual, I forgot to put a yield on the recipe card, but I’d say it can feed 6 adults or up to 8 adults and kids (we have a family of 7 and almost always have a piece or two leftover). Also, I have an oval 6 qt crockpot – if yours is a different size or shape you may have to adjust the layers slightly.
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Donna says
Just tried this, and it was delicious!! Though, I’m not sure if my crock pot is high intensity, but after just 4 hours, the noodles were done and the edges looked black, but they weren’t burnt! Other than that, I loved it!
MS sloCum says
If you don’t have 5-6 hrs can you cook it on high for less time? Do you think it would turn out ok?
autumn says
I don’t know – I’ve never tried it. I think I’d be worried it would get too hot and burn around the edges, but I’m really just not sure. Let me know if you try it!
Michelle says
I got so excited when I saw this recipe! I’ve been craving Lasagna, but again, baking all that time, this recipe looks so much easier and I can’t wait to make it tonight. My husband is super excited too 🙂 Thanks a million for the recipe. 🙂
Louanne pierce says
We used this recipe and loved it! I would add more sauce, but I like sauces.
ashley says
This isn’t turning out well. There were not enough ingredients. I used how much you said was needed and fell quite short.