Hey Bryton, remember when you were obsessed with lasagna because you loved Garfield who loved lasagna? Those were good times. Anyway, this one's for you! At the time of making these, Jared and I were on a low-carb diet. I wanted to make "lasagna" stuffed bell peppers for us, and I wanted to find a way to make a fun & different lasagna dish for you guys too. Lasagna rolls was what I came up with.
This recipe includes enough ingredients for 12 lasagna rolls and 4-6 stuffed bell peppers, depending on the size of the peppers. Only want to do the lasagna rolls or peppers? No problem! Just make more of each with this recipe or cut it in half to make about 9 lasagna rolls or peppers! Want sausage instead of ground beef? Perfect! Want to add mushrooms? That'd be yummy too! It's super easy to make this however you'd like.
INGREDIENTS
12 dried lasagna noodles (NOT the oven ready kind)
4-6 Bell Peppers
Olive Oil
2 lbs ground beef OR Italian sausage (mild, sweet, spicy...whatever you like!)
1 large onion, diced small
1 T. Dried Italian herbs (if using ground beef-NOT if using sausage)
Salt & pepper
24 oz. container of cottage cheese (can use ricotta like you would for real lasagna, but I prefer the texture of the cottage cheese which kind of melts into this)
1 batch of all purpose tomato sauce (recipe in blog) OR 2 jars of your preferred marinara
1 lb. bag shredded mozzarella cheese
Fresh parmesan cheese (in a wedge to grate yourself or pregrated)
INSTRUCTIONS
Cut the tops of the bell peppers off and deseed (I save the tops, mince them up, and use in my tomato sauce). Roast them in a preheated oven at 375 degrees for 10-12 minutes (just to get a head start on cooking).
Bring to boil in a large, wide pot, water deep enough to cover lasagna noodles by at least 3 inches. Add in a swirl of olive oil (to help the noodles not to stick) and salt the water. Add the lasagna noodles carefully to make sure they don't lay right on top of eachother and stick together. I lay them down in a circle pattern to help. You can even cook half of them at a time if you don't have a pot large enough. Cook for 10 minutes (a few minutes less than it calls for on the box.) While they're cooking, grease a cookie sheet with olive oil. When time is up, layer as many noodles as you can on the cookie sheet without overlapping. When full, lay down a piece of oiled parchment paper over top and lay down the rest of the noodles (or just use 2 greased cookie sheets). Cover noodles with a clean, damp cloth to keep them from drying out while you prepare the rest.
Preheat a large, nonstick skillet with a tablespoon of olive oil. Add the ground beef and allow to cook for a few minutes before breaking it apart (it gives the meat some nice caramelization and caramelization = flavor!) After allowing the meat to brown for a few, add in the diced onions and then start breaking apart and flipping the ground beef. Season with salt and pepper to taste and dried herbs (if using ground beef). Stir in the cottage cheese and grate in some parmesan cheese (approximately 1/4 cup).
Grease a 9 x 13 baking dish and either a square 9" or round 9" baking pan. After greasing, pour in a small amount of tomato sauce in the bottom of the pans. On each of the lasagna noodles, layer sauce, meat mixture, & mozzarella cheese
(about 1/4 cup each), and roll up tight. Place rolls in the 9 x 13 pan, open seams either touching the sides of the pan or the next roll (to help keep them from unrolling).
Divide the remaining meat mixture into the bell peppers. Top with sauce, mozzarella cheese, and parmesan cheese. Bake in the oven at 375 degrees for approximately 35 minutes or until cheese is melted, bubbly, and just starting to brown. Allow to cool for a few minutes, serve up, spoon some extra sauce from the pans on top, and eat up. Fork and knife required.
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