"Cheater" Lasagna

This is officially the easiest lasagna recipe ever. When we're done here, you'll want to shake my hand, or maybe even give me a big fat kiss. ;) 

 Here's my big secret: Instead of lasagna noodles, make layers of refrigerated ravioli!

If you've ever tried to construct a decent lasagna from scratch, you'll know what I mean when I say I kind of hate boiling and handling lasagna noodles. This is a terrifically fast and flavorful way to circumvent that whole process. You only need a handful of simple ingredients and about 30 minutes.

I made a small dish because I'm only cooking for two, but you can easily increase the size or do beef instead of chicken. I'll offer suggestions at the end of this recipe!

To make a small chicken lasagna (feeds 4 people), you'll need:

•  8 x 8 baking dish
• 1 package refrigerated cheese ravioli (not boiled) 
• 1 rotisserie chicken, meat removed & chopped into bitesize pieces
• 1/2 c. shredded mozzarella 
• 2 c. ricotta cheese mixed well with 1 egg & 1 tsp. Italian seasonings (we'll call this the ricotta cheese mixture)

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. In the baking dish layer the ingredients in this order:

1. ravioli
2. chicken
3. half of the ricotta cheese mixture, maybe slightly more
4. ravioli
5. other half of the ricotta cheese mixture
6. shredded cheese

Bake for 30 minutes, or until the top layer of cheese has reached the desired golden-brown-ness :)

What if you want to make a beef lasagna? Use ground beef instead of chicken (cook the beef first), and add some jarred spaghetti sauce (or home made!) on top before the final layer of cheese. Maybe even add a thin layer of sauce in the middle - on top of the beef, before the ricotta cheese.

What if you want to make a larger lasagna? To fill a 9" x 13" dish, just double or triple the amount of each ingredient. If you triple it, you may get to make a couple more layers.

Hopefully this little trick works out as well for you as it did for me!