This Is 10X Better Than Regular Lasagna

Thank you to Bombas for sponsoring this video! Head to https://bombas.yt.link/ygQcrCF and use code THATDUDECANCOOK at checkout for 20% off your first purchase.

Digital Food Scale -https://amzn.to/4p0eA9N

⬇️ Get my Cookbook ⬇️
Master in the Making E-Book- https://www.thatdudecancook.com/

Subscribe to My New Gaming Channel- https://www.youtube.com/@ThatDudeCanGame

Kitchen Products I own and love:
Typhur Sync Gold Dual Wireless Thermometer- https://bit.ly/4aYmf2w
Or Amazon- https://amzn.to/4hB6SQ4
(10% off discount code: SONNYALL)
GrillBlazer Torch (Use Code Thatdudecancook) to save 10%- https://grillblazer.com/
Premium Aged Soy Sauce – https://amzn.to/3ovtFXm
My Mortar and Pestle- https://amzn.to/3XfXBTp
Benriner Mandoline Slicer- https://amzn.to/3b07K3u
Microplane- https://amzn.to/3B8pGnp
My Portable Gas Cooker- https://amzn.to/4dGcbek
OXO 3-in-1 Adjustable Potato Ricer- https://amzn.to/3QNVLbi
Food Storage Containers with Lids- https://amzn.to/476tkeM
Rubbermaid Commercial High Heat Resistant Silicone Spatula- https://amzn.to/3FKzfde
3 Pack Stainless Steel Whisk- https://amzn.to/3SqHbrx
Slow ‘N Sear® Deluxe Kettle Grill- https://amzn.to/3PXAOdt
My Zojirushi Rice Cooker- https://amzn.to/3aZLqXT
Vitamix Blender- https://amzn.to/3opQNmo
Cuisinart Food Processor- https://amzn.to/3Oy61jz
KitchenAid Stand Mixer- https://amzn.to/3zqIJYE

Recipe Notes:
1. Grind the veg using the meat grinder
2. Use plain breakfast style sausage, not Italian
3. Use 10 eggs for every 1 kg of flour
4. Roll pasta through on thick setting then fold in half and continue thinning
5. Blanch in lightly salted water for 45 seconds or so
6. Bake at 340F (170C) for 40 minutes or so

Bechamel Recipe:
120 g (8 tbsp) unsalted butter
120 g (1 cup) all-purpose flour
1.8 L (7.5 cups) whole milk
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
Salt and pepper to taste

Bolognese Recipe:
3 tbsp olive oil
2 carrots finely minced
1 large yellow onion finely minced
3 simple pork sausages or 8 oz (230 g) ground pork
3 lb (1.3 kg) ground beef (80/20)
1 cup (240 ml) dry white wine or red wine
20 oz (560 g) canned San Marzano tomatoes
1 cup (240ml) water (may need to add more during cooking process)
salt and pepper to taste

Pasta Dough:
500 g 00 flour
270 g beaten egg
Pinch of salt

Rosemary salt recipe:
1 cup kosher salt
14 sprigs of rosemary stripped
8 sprigs sage stripped
3-5 cloves of garlic (3 if they are big and 5 if small)
1 lemon zested

Rosemary salt weighted recipe:
250 grams of kosher salt
8 grams of fresh sage leaves
16 grams fresh rosemary leaves
20 grams of fresh garlic
3 grams of fresh lemon zest

MY MERCH STORE- https://thatdudecancook.teemill.com

FOLLOW ME:
Snapchat- https://t.snapchat.com/G6ZR4TRR
Instagram- https://www.instagram.com/thatdude_cancook/
TikTok- https://www.tiktok.com/@thatdudecancook?lang=en
Facebook- https://www.facebook.com/Thatdudecancook/

DISCLAIMER: This video and description contain affiliate links, meaning we’ll receive a small commission if you click on one of the product links.

What’s up, dude? So, I just got back from an Italian adventure where I had one of the very best lasagnas of my life called Nana’s Lasagna from a restaurant called Bua Mario right in the heart of Florence. And given that they’ve been serving food since 1886, I think they’ve had some time to practice their lasagna. Today, I’m going to do my very best to recreate that lasagna at home and hopefully do Italy proud in the process. Now, let’s go. Now, the first thing we need to start right away is the rag goo because it needs to cook for a long time in order to get really truly silky and soft and delicious and full of flavor. I’m going to be grinding my own chuck roast because I’m a psycho. But if you don’t want to do that, just buy 80/20 ground beef. But if you are using a meat grinder, make sure you throw this attachment in the freezer about 30 minutes before you want to use it. You want it to stay nice and ice cold. It helps preserve the structure of that meat. Slides right in. And then I’ll simply just grind that through on medium speed. But we’re not done yet. We’re actually going to use this same machine to process our veggies, which I saw in another lasagna video as I was researching for this on YouTube. And I thought, why not just kill two birds with one stone? And so without washing, I’ll now just feed through my carrots and my onions. Celery can just off. I’m just sort of anti- celery when it comes to cooking it in sauces for extended periods of time. I still like it raw and pickled and stuff, but that’s just the camp I’m in. So there you go. And as you can see, the meat grinder did a really good job of turning these carrots and onions into a sort of like really really finely minced sofo. Although it doesn’t have the celery, but this is so perfect because it’s going to literally melt into the sauce, which is exactly what I want. Now, moving on. Because lasagna has so many different components, I wanted to keep each one really simple. So, starting with the ragu here, we’re going to just do a little bit of olive oil in this sort of large size Dutch oven. And then we’re going to start with our veg here. Straight in. And I’m going to hit that with a little bit of rosemary salt. If you know, you know. And if you don’t know, it’s just a herb in garlic seasoning we make on the channel. I’ll put a link to the recipe and the video down in the description. Definitely, you should learn how to make that one. It’s incredible for the holidays. So, over medium heat, we’re just going to sweat this down for about 8 minutes or so, just to sort of concentrate these flavors. Now, while those vegetables sweat, let’s talk sausage. And it’s really important because this flavor is so important to the ragu and therefore so important to the lasagna in turn. And based on my research, Italians basically use a very, very mildly spiced pork sausage. It’ll literally just have salt and pepper in most cases and maybe one other simple spice. What you don’t want to do is use Italian sausage, the fennel in there, and all those spices are just going to take over too much. You don’t want that overpowering your lasagna. Your best bet is going to be like mild breakfast sausage probably that doesn’t have any maple in it, of course. And so, I ended up with these. I’m just going to use them and see how it goes. It would also be easy just to buy a little bit of ground pork and use that as well. That will definitely do the trick. What I’m going to do here is just take this sausage out of the case. We’re just going to sort of crumble it in with our sofrio next. Once the 8 minutes is up on your sofrio, we’ll just begin breaking up the sausage in here just by hand. It’s all going to break down over the long slow cooking anyway, so you don’t have to go too crazy with trying to get it small at this point. And then we’re just going to cook this down for about five, six more minutes with just the sausage and the sofrio before adding in all of our ground beef. What we’re trying to do here is really just capture all these flavors together, get all the liquid together all in one pot. Now, my normal cooking brain here would tell me to separate all these ingredients and like really brown off that beef separately in a pan before adding them together to extract more flavor from all the browning. Having said that, my whole goal with this lasagna is like silky soft, tender bites that melt in your mouth. And so when you brown meat, yes, you’re going to get more flavor, but you’re going to lose that softness. And so for each component of the lasagna, we’re going for ultimate tender bites. And that’s how we’re going to make the bashimal. And that’s how we’re going to make the pasta as well. It’s going to be very silky, very tender, very delicate. Or it’s going to suck. I don’t want to get out. If you want with this recipe, you could also skip the ground pork or the sausage and just put panetta or put both or just do beef. It’s really up to you. But I would say the pork flavor in here is important. So if you want my two cents, definitely put some kind of pork product in here if you eat it. Whilst in Italy, I learned a few sayings. So now every time Marcus comes in late, I say, “The one who sleeps doesn’t catch a fish.” Also, I’m not really good with languages, but the pronunciation I get. Uh, we were staying in a town called Calagon in Sardinia and I noticed they drop all the O’s, the N’s, some of the Rs, other vowels. So, it’s not Calagon, it’s Caligan. Caligan Caligan. Now, after the beef’s been in here for about 5 6 minutes, I’m just seeing all this beautiful juice coming out. And so, what I want to do before reducing this down further and getting rid of that juice is now add in the wine. And I’m actually using dry white wine here. I’ll explain why in a second. And because I want this lasagna so light and tender, I’m definitely going for the more northern Italian approach, which is by using white wine. Of course, people do do whatever in Italy, but it’s more common in the south that they would use red wine in a lasagna rather than white wine or just in general. And so, we’re going to cook this wine down for another 5 minutes or so until the juice is almost gone, but still there. We never want to lose this juice that’s in the bottom of the pot. We kind of want to maintain this the whole time. And one of my other favorite things about Italians is the way they say the word okay. Once you hear it, it’s just it gets stuck in your brain forever. Okay. And the last thing that’s going in is our tomato puree here. I just had whole San Marzano tomatoes that I just blended. And I don’t want this to be too tomatoy, right? Usually I would put tomato paste and such, but this time I actually just want to go less tomato cuz I don’t want this to be like deep red. I want it to look more meaty. And I think we’re right on track cuz this looks pretty good. And then I’m just going to top that off with just a little bit of water. And as you can see here, this is just a really good level of liquid to have. That level of sauciness is just perfect. All we need to do now is nothing, right? We need to leave this on a tiny little simmer. Just barely bubbling away. Like just the heat maybe a touch over low and let it cook for 3 to 4 hours. You could probably get away with 90 minutes, 2 hours if you’re in a hurry, but if you’re in a hurry, why the are you making lasagna? So, just let it cook cuz the longer it cooks, the better it’s going to be. And 3 to 4 hours is going to make it really silky soft and tender, which is the whole uh game plan for our lasagna. Now, before moving on, do we have any other lovers of fall in the house? It is my favorite season of the year. I just love cooking some comforting food, sipping on a warm drink, and staying inside, and being nice and cozy. But there is one thing that’s truly the cherry on top, and that’s a pair of cozy slippers that your feet will literally thank you for. And that’s where our sponsor Bombas comes in. Bombas makes premium slippers, socks, t-shirts, and underwear using highquality materials like marino wool and extra-l long staple cotton. And every single item is designed for comfort, durability, and all day wear. And their slippers truly make perfect gifts for the whole family. They have everybody covered because whether you need soft bottom house slippers for lounging, hard bottom ones to grab the mail, or slip-ons for everything in between, there’s style for every occasion. And upon trying my new pair of Gripper slippers, it was like my foot just entered this heavenly cloud. They were so comfortable. And not just that, but cleaning is an absolute breeze because you can simply just toss them in the laundry, which is a huge plus for me. And what I love most about Bombas is they have a real mission behind every purchase because for every item you purchase, they will donate one to homeless shelters with the top three most requested items of t-shirts, socks, and underwear. And Bombas now ships to over 200 countries, so you can enjoy comfort and give back no matter where you are. And new customers get 20% off their first purchase. Just go to bombas.com/ that dude can cook and use code that dude can cook at checkout. Thank you Bombas for sponsoring this video and thank you for what you do. Now back to the recipe. And now while your ragu is bubbling away, this is the perfect time to make your pasta dough and your besamemell. If you don’t want to make pasta dough, just buy those curly little sheets. Now, your basic ratio for pasta dough is 100 g of zero zero flour to one whole egg or 50 to 55 g of eggs per every 100 g of flour you use. I’ll put the recipe in ounces down in the description because I know everybody in America doesn’t really work with grams. But if you want my two cents, spend $10 to $15 on one of these and never look back. If you want to recreate recipes and be really consistent and make it just how I do, you kind of need one of these. And it’s a cheap tool, so why not get one? link in description. So, down to the gram here, that’s 500 grams of flour, and that’s 270 gram of beaten eggs. If you’re using really large eggs, five may be enough. If they’re smaller, you may need to crack a sixth one and use part of it to make that exact ratio, which is what I did. And so, to make the dough, just lay down your flour and make a little crater in the middle before pouring in all your beaten eggs. Add a little pinch of salt. And then, using a fork, we’re just going to begin to pull the flour into the egg, making sure we don’t break the dam and let all this egg out. And once it’s looking kind of pasty like this, I switch to a dough cutter and I just start bashing it all together first with this very simple tool. Also put a link for that in the description if you don’t have one. And once you see it’s at a point like this where you know you can work it with your hands. We’re just going to begin kneading this dough for about 5 to 10 minutes. It really depends how hard you need. But when you’re done, it should look nice and smooth. And when you press into it with your finger, it should spring back. It shouldn’t leave an indent. It should just sort of refill where you touched. At this point, all you need to do is pop it in a bowl, cover it with a towel, and let that rest for about 30 minutes. And now, while that pasta rests, let’s make the rue. Here I have 120 g of both unsalted butter and flour, equal parts. So that’s about 4.2 oz. Looks about a little less than a cup to me if you want to use the cup measurement, but honestly, please weigh stuff out. It’ll be so much better. Now, in a medium pot here, I’ll just start by adding my unsalted butter. And once it’s all melted down, just add in your flour. Give it a really good mix. And we’re going to start just cooking this rue off because we need to get rid of that raw flour taste. If you add the milk right away, you’re going to be left with this sort of uncooked taste. And that’s an amateur move. And we don’t train amateurs over here. And you’re not an amateur, you’re a pro because you’re subscribed to this channel and you get all these free tips from a chef with 20 years of real time restaurant experience for free. I mean, come on. Why wouldn’t you subscribe? Also, subscribe to my gaming channel link in description. And you know, if you look into the world of Ruse, there are so many different stages of Rue. The longer you cook it, the darker it gets. In this case, we’re just making a blonde r. We don’t want a lot of color cuz we want to end up with a really nice white bashimal sauce. But for instance, say you’re making gravy. Maybe you take this to a really nice golden brown color to sort of match the color of the stock you’re putting in. Maybe for beef, even darker. There’s even these special Cajun Rs that are like black. That’s what they use to make gumbo. And so previously while making a bashameal sauce, I would always scald the milk first, meaning just bring it up to temperature till that skin forms on top and then add it little by little to my R, but I did so much research for this video and I found one French to Michelin star chef who looked like he really knew what was going on with Bashamel. So I’m going to follow his instructions and what I’m going to do is add cold milk and not little by little all at once. I’m going to see if there’s a difference here between the way I do it and this new way. But it’s always fun to just get out of your usual way of thinking and try something new when you’re cooking, right? It’s just one of those fields. And after cooking this r for just about 5 minutes over medium heat, I can really smell how this has changed. It doesn’t smell like raw flour anymore. It’s starting to smell like cookies baking or something like that. It has no color, right? Just barely any. This is what we want. And so now I’m going to turn the heat up just a little and I’m going to add all of my cold milk all at once. This is 1.8 quarts, guys. But all the recipes will be listed in the description under the video in both grams as well as the American way. So no worries. There’s metric and imperial all at once. And now we’re going to switch to a whisk here. And I’m just going to keep stirring this with the whisk, making sure I get in all those little nooks and crannies so nothing gets stuck to the bottom. And one important thing to know when you’re making a bashimmell is this needs to come to a boil before you see how thick it got. So you’d be thinking right now like this is never going to work. But once you keep cooking it and it reaches a certain temperature, it will really thicken up quickly. And here, even after 5 minutes, I can just feel from moving my whisk through this how thick it is. And one easy way to tell if it’s done is just to take a spoon, put it in, draw a line through. If that line holds really well, you know it’s done. That’s just perfect right now. And it feels really smooth. So, I’m happy about this technique. But we are not done yet. As you’ve seen, there’s been no seasoning at all in here. And that’s what we need to do now. And so, we’re going to start by adding little bits of salt. Takes a while to dissolve. So really, you need to wait a few minutes before you get that proper judgment of how much salt you really put in. And also to contribute to the really soft, silky, light aspect of this lasagna, I’m just going to do some white pepper instead of black. And of course, a little bit of nutmeg. Just feels wrong not to put it in here. And I actually like that flavor with the uh ragu. But be cautious with the nutmeg, right? It’s powerful stuff. Definitely don’t put too much at once. Give it a little taste. It’s coming together. Definitely needs more salt still. And then I’ll do a touch more pepper and nutmeg. If you try to get it right all in one go, you’ll almost always fail. You know, it just take little steps to get it up to where you want with the flavors and the seasoning. Oh, and by the way, as soon as that was thick to my liking, I just killed the heat while I added all those seasonings. There’s no reason to leave it on. Give it another taste. Perfect. Man, we don’t want to go too crazy with the seasoning because our ragu has a lot of salt as well. So, for me, that’s just nice. And there’s our beautiful beshmell. We want to get out most of it right away, but I’m going to leave about 20% in the pot. I’ll tell you why in a sec. And then very important, take a little piece of cling film, saran wrap. And what we want to do is just have that touch the top of your bashamel because if you don’t, it’s going to form this nasty skin and then you’ll have to kind of either try to remove it, which sucks, or mix it back in, and then you end up with lumps. The saran wrap makes the skin for it. So when you take it off, you’re left with a nice smooth sauce. And with our remaining bashameal in the pot here, we’re going to do the same thing with the cling film just so it doesn’t form a skin. We’re saving this so when we plate the lasagna, we can put down like a little bed of the bashimal underneath just to have a little extra sauce. And it’s also just going to be nice for presentation. And now for my final review of that specific technique. Awesome. I’m never making it another way again. Not only was it about five times easier, but it was very, very smooth and very, very nice. Why would you do it any other way? I’m never doing it another way. That’s it. Done for life. Done. And after the 30 minutes rest is up, we can go ahead and slice off a piece and go to roll it out. And I’m just using my KitchenAid stand mixer with a pasta attachment. You can roll it out by hand if you dare, but you’ll never be this consistent. And I’m starting on the thickest setting. And I’m just taking a piece like so and just flattening out one end so it’ll at least start going through the machine. And then I’ll fold that piece in half and run it through again. And then I’m just going to keep going down by one setting until I get all the way down to two. So not all the way thin, but the one just above it. And now from here, I’m going to sort of measure it out to the baking dish I’ll be using. And then we can clean up these edges. And so here we have our nice little sheets. Now they’re ready for blanching. And now the pasta sheets go into boiling water for just 30 40 seconds. It’s ever so lightly salted. I’m just going to do about two at a time so they don’t stick. And they will cook insanely fast. There we are. 40 seconds. And now straight into this ice water to stop that cooking process. Make sure they’re submerged and they’re not stuck and you can get it out together in one piece. And we’ll just repeat that process with all our sheets. And after just about 20 seconds in the water, we can just get these out. We don’t want to leave them in here. And you shouldn’t need any oil or anything because the water should just prevent them from sticking. They look fine. And here we are, my friends, after 3 hours. I added probably about a cup of water only during the cooking process because I just had the heat so low. This is absolutely done. Give it a taste for seasoning. The meat literally just falls apart in your mouth just the way I wanted it. So, I really think the no sear is the way to go, especially for a lasagna. What we need to do now is just dump some of this out and cool it down for the lasagna. We don’t want to be building it together while it’s so hot. So, there we are. Now, we have more surface area. This will cool down a lot quicker. In fact, I’m going to blast it in my freezer for about 10 minutes. But, if you have the time for it, you don’t need to do that. Just leave it room temp for like an hour. All right, my friends. It’s time to layer this up. And I’m going to start by buttering my dish. You could just use olive oil or oil, too. Doesn’t exactly have to be butter, but man, a little butter. Hey, why not? I swear one of my favorite pastas is still just butter and salt. It’s just so good. Okay, just a nice layer of butter. Nothing too fancy. And in with our bashamel to start and do a little layer of it. This is just at room temp right now, this bashimal. And it’s just perfect for spreading. Again, really happy with that uh technique for the bimmell. I would just always do it like that from now on. Little more down here. And now we’ll lay in our pasta sheet here. You know what? I might be able to get away with just one right here. And now more bashimmell. Cover up my mistakes. It’s lasagna in the end. It always works. Little more. A little more. And now our ragu. Do about three, four big spoonfuls. We really want to be able to cut a piece without it being a total mess, right? So don’t want it to be too sloppy, but also sloppy enough. And then of course some palm reano. Nice big layer of cheese over the ragu. That’s going to bring a lot of good salt and umami. And then all we’re going to do is repeat this process, my friends. Another sheets or bashamel. You get the idea. And we’ll go for about I don’t know five layers or so, maybe more. I don’t want it to be overly thick. You know, I’m going for something like about 2 in. And you get it, my friends. Just repeat this process until you have as many layers as you like. If you want to go to the top, go to the top. And now on this final layer here, I’m going to take a little bit of extra time to get all this bashameal in the nooks and crannies and especially in the corners, which I’ll show you here in a sec. Just get a little extra on the edges. And then I’ll just take a little brush. What I’m basically trying to do is just seal like seal it all in. And then of course, one final layer of ragu. And I’m taking extra time here with this last little bit of bolognese because I’m not going to spread that. I’m going to leave it just like that. And then totally optional, but I’ve got a little ricotta in the fridge. And so I’m just going to dot the top. And poisonally, I love wicata. And one more final layer of parmesan cheese. And my friends, it’s ready for the oven. Got a little thicker than I liked. Uh but hey, I’m not going to be complaining. And I’ll just drop that on a sheetpan. And we’re going to bake this uncovered for about 40 minutes at 350° F. And here she is all baked up. And now I highly suggest you let this rest for at least 30 minutes. Everything needs to settle in. It’s way too hot right now. It’s going to be a mess if you try to slice it right away. And you’re not going to get a nice even looking slice. And I like to plate it up on a black plate with more bashamel on the bottom and then even more ragu on top if you want. And there she is. Let’s give it a taste with Marcus. All right, Marcus. Here we go. You know what? That actually looks a lot like the one I had in Italy. Nice catch. Nice catch. Yeah, I think the little circle of bashamel on the bottom on the black plate with the bolognese sort of bleeding out into the white bashamel to me looks really cool. Big old fat bite. Feels really tender as you fork through it, right? Like goes right through. Cheers. Oh, wo. It’s a little lukewarm cuz we’ve been messing with the thumbnail forever. But damn. My biggest worry was the pasta would be a little tough and it’s not at all. It’s absorbed all the flavors of the besamemell and the bolognese or ragu and it’s just very tender. And then having that extra bashimmell on the bottom and the extra ragu on top it I don’t know it just makes it even better. This in a nice Italian glass of chocolate milk man knows food pairing. The pasta is great in this. It’s super tender. Everything’s balanced. Every time I’ve ever had lasagna it’s been a brick. This feels lighter than normal lasagna. Back home in the Northeast, everybody covers it in, you know, I don’t know, 48 ounces of mozzarella per serving. Thing, right? So, this don’t even have mozzarella in it. There’s American lasagna and then there’s like more to what the Italians would do. And it is so much lighter. And that was the whole goal with this one. Make it. Make it. Thanks for watching today, my friend. If you’re a fan of written recipes, definitely check out my Master in the Making ebook that will be linked down in the description. And if you want to keep learning today, here are two more Italian recipes from my channel. Both of them are absolute hits. Thanks for watching and until next time, you know I love you enough. [Music]