Mushroom Lasagna

🥘 Ingredients

• ** (optional)
• butter (unsalted, 12 tablespoons, 6 ounces or 170 grams, divided)
  3/4 cup
• béchamel**
• flour (all-purpose, 65 grams)
  1/2 cup
• garlic (clove, large, minced)
  1
• grated parmesan (freshly, 85 grams or 3 ounces)
  1 cup
• kale
• lasagna noodles (dried, 12 ounces or 340 grams)
  3/4 pound
• milk (whole, 950 ml)
  4 cups
• mushrooms**
• noodles**
• nutmeg (ground, I use less, because this seems like a lot)
  1 teaspoon
• olive oil
• pepper (freshly ground black)
  1 teaspoon
• portobello mushroom (cremini or, 680 grams, sliced)
  1 1/2 pounds
• salt

🍳 Cookware

• pot
• saucepan
• pan
• baking dish

1. 1

   Gather mushrooms** , béchamel** , noodles** , kale , ** .

   mushrooms**, béchamel**, noodles**, kale, **
2. 2

   **Heat your oven:** To 375°F.
3. 3

   **Prepare noodles:** Bring a large, wide (if you use a wide one, you can save a dish later and saute your mushrooms in the bottom of it) pot of water to boil with salt and a splash of oil, that will help keep your noodles from sticking together as they drain. Add the lasagna noodles and cook for ⏱️ 10 minutes . Drain and set aside.

   salt, lasagna noodles: 3/4 pound (dried, 12 ounces or 340 grams)
4. 4

   **Make béchamel:** Bring the milk and garlic to simmer in a saucepan , or heat it in your microwave, and set it aside. Melt 1/2 cup (8 tablespoons or 115 grams) butter in a large saucepan. If your name is Deb, you will probably brown this butter, too. Add the flour and cook for one minute over low heat, stirring constantly with a whisk or wooden spoon. Pour in the hot milk, a little at a time at first and stirring until combined. Once you’ve added half of it, you can add the second half all at once, along with 2 teaspoons kosher salt, the pepper , and nutmeg . Cook over medium-low heat, stirring or whisking frequently, for ⏱️ 3-5 minutes , or until thick. Set aside.

   milk: 4 cups (whole, 950 ml), garlic: 1 (clove, large, minced), butter: 3/4 cup (unsalted, 12 tablespoons, 6 ounces or 170 grams, divided), flour: 1/2 cup (all-purpose, 65 grams), pepper: 1 teaspoon (freshly ground black), nutmeg: 1 teaspoon (ground, I use less, because this seems like a lot)
5. 5

   **Prepare mushrooms:** Discard portobello mushroom stems and/or trim the ends of the cremini stems. Slice mushrooms 1/4-inch thick. Heat 2 tablespoons olive oil and 2 tablespoons butter over medium in the bottom of the large, wide pot you used to cook the noodles earlier, or in a large sauté pan . Cook half the mushrooms with a couple pinches of salt for about ⏱️ 5 minutes , or until they are tender and release some of their juices, tossing to make sure they cook evenly. Repeat with additional oil and butter, and remaining mushrooms.

   portobello mushroom: 1 1/2 pounds (cremini or, 680 grams, sliced), olive oil
6. 6

   **Assemble lasagna:** Spread some of the sauce in the bottom of an 8 x 12 or 9 x 13 baking dish . (Ina recommends the former, I only had the latter; if you’d like to freeze or give this dish as a gift, remember to use a foil pan). Arrange a layer of noodles on top*, then more sauce (about 1/4 of what remains), 1/3 of the mushrooms and 1/4 cup grated parmesan . Repeat two more times then top with a final layer of noodles, your remaning sauce and last 1/4 cup of parmesan.

   grated parmesan: 1 cup (freshly, 85 grams or 3 ounces)
7. 7

   **Bake:** For ⏱️ 45 minutes , or until top is browned and the sauce is bubbly. Let sit at room temperature for ⏱️ 15 minutes before serving. To freeze for future use, allow it to cool completely and wrap two to three times in plastic wrap before freezing.
8. 📝

   [2018 update] I have been making this recipe for years and it never fails to receive rave reviews, even from people who think that they could only love red-sauced lasagna. I tweak it in a bunch of ways. I swap out portobellos with cremini (small brown) mushrooms as portobellos are more expensive, harder to find, break easily and are, in fact, just large brown mushrooms. I add a clove of minced garlic to the sauce, because I love it in a bechamel. My only gripe with this recipe is the number of pots it uses; I counted 4 in the original (not including the colander, cutting board and knife, ugh) and managed to trim it to 3 in my version, below. However, I always forget all about the inconvenience of dishes once I taste the final dish — completely and totally worth it. [Note: New photos we are also added in 2018.] A few optional tweaks: I sometimes add 1/2 cup chopped shallots to the pan before the mushrooms, cooking them until they soften a little, then adding the mushrooms. I often skip warming the milk, and just add it slowly and carefully to the butter-flour mixture, and it isn’t a problem. A splash of wine or marsala would be great in the mushrooms, then cooked off at the end. Finally, I am always tempted to increase everything in this recipe by 1/3, i.e. using a full pound of noodles and a full two pounds of mushrooms, and make a more towering lasagna, but you’ll want to make sure you have a deep pan (mine is 3″ deep and I’m not fully confident). There’s also the fact that it might be almost over-the-top rich; the thickness, as written, is quite nice.