Greek Pastitsio Recipe (Greek Lasagna Recipe!)

Greek Pastitsio Recipe: Pastitsio is a comforting Greek lasagna with layers of pasta, a meat sauce, and creamy bechamel. It’s one of those legendary dishes similar to moussaka! This lasagna recipe is easier to make than you think, and you can prepare pastitsio in advance. #lasagna #lasagnarecipe #pasta #pastarecipe #greekfood #greekrecipes

👉FULL RECIPE: https://www.themediterraneandish.com/greek-pastitsio-recipe/

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🍅INGREDIENTS: 🍅
🔹 3 ½ cups uncooked Penne pasta
🔹 Salt
🔹 Private Reserve Greek extra virgin olive oil
🔹 3 tbsp grated Parmesan
For Meat Sauce
🔹 3 tbsp Private Reserve Greek extra virgin olive oil
🔹 1 large yellow onion, chopped
🔹 1 ½ lb lean ground beef
🔹 3 garlic cloves, peeled and chopped
🔹 Salt
🔹 ½ cup red wine such as merlot
🔹 28 oz canned crushed tomatoes
🔹 2 dried bay leaves
🔹 ¾ tsp ground allspice
🔹 ½ tsp ground cinnamon
🔹 ¼ tsp ground nutmeg
🔹 pinch sugar
For Bechamel
🔹 ⅓ cup + 2 tbsp Private Reserve Greek extra virgin olive oil
🔹 ⅔ cup all-purpose flour
🔹 ½ tsp salt, more if you like
🔹 ¼ tsp ground nutmeg
🔹 4 cups 2% milk, warmed
🔹 2 large eggs

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⏱️CHAPTERS⏱️
00:00​​ – Intro
00:30 – Cooking the pasta
00:56 – Making the meat sauce
02:18 – Draining the liquid from the meat sauce
02:34 – Substitute for red wine
03:18 – Draining the pasta
03:36 – Making the bechamel sauce
05:22 – Tempering the eggs and adding them into the bechamel sauce
06:10 – Assembling the pastitsio (Greek lasagna)
07:44 – Baking the pastitsio
08:12 – Taste test

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My name is Suzy Karadsheh, Chef and New York Times Bestselling Author, and here on The Mediterranean Dish, you will find easy, wholesome, and healthy recipes that celebrate the bold flavors of the Mediterranean from Southern Europe, to North Africa, and the Middle East.

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Learn how to make Greek food, Italian food, Moroccan, Middle Eastern, adapted with a modern twist for all the busy cooks and moms out there! Most of our recipes abide by the Mediterranean diet, but please consult a doctor for your dietary needs.

– If you love Greek food, you must try homemade Greek pastitsio, a layered pasta casserole with a beautiful bechamel topping. So good. Pastitsio is easier to make at home than you think, okay? It has three different components, obviously, the pasta. Then we have two sauces, a meat sauce, and a bechamel sauce.

You can do all this at the same time, and then layer your casserole, stick it in the oven. It is absolute deliciousness. So let me show you. We’ve got some boiling water for the pasta. We’re gonna just give it a couple dashes of kosher salt, and then we’re gonna drop our pasta.

I’m using penne here, no big deal. While that’s happening, we’re gonna do all the things, okay? So we’re gonna start on the meat sauce. It’s absolute deliciousness, and get your oven warmed to 350. Nice large skillet, medium high heat, a drizzle of some good extra virgin olive oil.

Of course, we’re going Greek with our olive oil, right? So I’m using actually our Early Harvest from TheMediterraneanDish.com. Woo hoo. Yaya would be so proud. Right, we’re going in with some onions. We’re gonna just kind of toss the onions around for a few minutes. No big deal. We just wanna get little golden brown color on them. Your pasta will typically take about eight minutes. Perfect enough for you to finish working on the active part of your meat sauce.

Going in with some garlic, going in with the meat. This is just ground beef. You could do beef or lamb. You could even do turkey if you like, but if you want rich flavor, then opt for the beef or lamb. The chefiest of chefs right here. All right, so break up your meat.

You’re looking to fully cook your meat here. This is just the start of your sauce. Good things are happening. The meat is starting to brown. Add some seasoning here. Kosher salt. A hint of cinnamon, a little bit of all spice, pinch of nutmeg, not too much, just a pinch.

And we’re gonna toss this party. And then at this point, I’ll probably drain it because I’m seeing some liquid that I don’t want in my pastitsio. So we will drain and return in just a second. Bay leaf, a couple of them. Now, for people who don’t consume alcohol,

Not even in their food, you can skip the red wine. But if that’s not the case for you, I highly recommend using it because it does really add some nuance to your sauce. Nuance, I’m like, oh, I’m a chefy chef, check me out.

Going in with some crushed tomatoes from a can. No big deal. And so this is the last bit of your sauce situation, and you’re gonna want to get to a point where this is simmer-y. Simmer-y? Where you let it simmer until the juices all marry nicely. So let it bubble a few minutes,

And then turn the heat to low. At this point, the pasta is actually ready. I’m going to go ahead and drain it before I begin on my bechamel. All right, now we’re gonna make the bechamel sauce, which is the creamy layer that kind of sits on top of pastitsio.

The same idea happens when you make moussaka. So we’re gonna go ahead and heat up some extra virgin olive oil. Okay? You are gonna employ a whisk here. So go grab your whisk, a good bit of extra virgin olive oil. You’re gonna heat that up on medium-high until it starts to sizzle.

We’re seeing some bubbles. We’re working on the roux, the very first part of this classic French sauce. We’re going in with the all-purpose flour. Now, typically, if you’re making this the French way, you are using butter, like a lot of butter. I use olive oil. It works beautifully for me. Yes.

Okay, now it’s looking good. Kind of golden brown. And we’re gonna add a little bit of the milk. The milk must be warmed. It cannot be cold milk. So just remember that I warmed up my milk first, and it’s gonna start thickening. And so you’re gonna have to keep moving it about. Moving to the whisk now. Pour and whisk at the same time. It’s gonna be lumpy at first, but you’re gonna need to continuously whisk until everything is creamy and smooth. Beautiful. Almost there. I’m on medium heat at this point, and I’m gonna continue to whisk. It is now smooth

And it’s going to continue to thicken as you work with it. You just wanna keep working so it doesn’t get lumpy. And then when you turn the heat off, at some point it’s going to thicken some more. So it’s gonna look a little bit loose at first, and then it’s gonna thicken later.

We’re also going to add an egg to this, but you must temper your egg. So let me show you. So to temper your egg before adding it, you’re gonna grab some of this bechamel goodness, you cannot put your cold eggs in here, okay? Two large eggs, and you’re going to whisk,

And you do this because you don’t wanna cook the eggs in your sauce and make it… We are not making scrambled eggs here, guys, right? We’re tempering them so that we don’t ruin our bechamel. All right? So now they’re entering this beautiful goodness. Perfection. Everything is ready.

Your oven should be now all ready for you at 350. You’re gonna now assemble in layers as you would do a lasagna, as you would do moussaka, very easy. So let’s go do that. Grab yourself a nice baking dish, little bit of extra virgin olive oil at the bottom.

We brush our baking dish. All right, your pasta goes in first, so remember three layers, okay? Spread that layer out evenly. Now the meat sauce, ooh, it’s heavy. We’ve got a lot of meat going on here. And again, we’re gonna spread the meat sauce all over. Don’t forget to remove the bay leaf

Before you add it in. Bechamel. Ooh. And as it sits a little bit, it kind of gets hardened, so you’re gonna want to break it up a tad, and then this whole party is going to go in the oven to cook until the bechamel fully hardens.

You get a beautiful topping of creamy bechamel that’s golden brown on the top. Oh my gosh, it’s deliciousness. This was my favorite part growing up. I would stand by my mom. My mom, who you all know is Egyptian, made pastitsio all the time, but we had a different name for it.

And every Egyptian will say this is macaroni bechamel. In Greece, they call it pastitsio. And this is some of what I love about cooking and eating the Mediterranean way is that we have borrowed and inherited from one another over the years all sorts of beautiful flavors that we share,

And I just love to focus on that. We’re going in the oven, 350, one hour, let’s go. Now we’re midway through and you start seeing just some browning around the edges. What you really want is for the top also to have some color. The creamy bechamel, the beautifully seasoned red sauce.

This is all the comfort. And all you need is maybe a glass of red wine. I’ve already been eating this, you guys, because it’s so good. Thank you. And if you’re a big fan of Greek food, just like I am, then make sure that you check out my next video for moussaka. It is amazing, sort of a sister to this beautiful pastitsio. Grab the recipe for pastitsio over on TheMediterraneanDish.com. I will see you later. Ciao. You know, this is a sort of meal that if you make it, everyone will love you for it, and they will call you the chefiest of chefs. And don’t you wanna be called the chefiest of chefs? (playful music) – [Crowd] aw. – You don’t clearly.