I have made this recipe many times and it always turns out great. I usually make it on Sunday's when I have extra time because I like to make 3 at once. This way we have one for dinner that day plus 2 extra to put in the freezer for an easy meal later. I substitute the ground beef with ground turkey, and instead of using 3 - 15oz jars of sauce I use 2 of the 24 oz jars because 1) I like a little extra sauce, & 2) the 24oz jars are usually on sale for less than the 15oz jars. Meijer has a 3lb container of Jennie-O ground turkey always for $9 which is cheaper than buying the 1lb containers at $4/ea (I'm sure you can get the 3lb containers at other stores but I haven't found it at Kroger). I always stock up on pasta & sauce when it's on sale and if the turkey goes on sale I know it's time for a Lasagna day! The 13x9 aluminum pans are pretty cheap, I buy the 4pk for a couple bucks, which gets me through 2 sessions because I use one of my glass pans for the one were baking that day. This isn't the least expensive freezer meal I've made but it's cheaper than going out to eat, better (tasting and for you!) than the premade kind you buy in the freezer section, and it's one of Jer's favorite meals, so totally worth it.
I found the recipe on Pinterest, from a freezer cooking post on a blog called Happy Money Saver:
Lasagna Recipe from Happy Money Saver
After doing this a few times, I have a process in order to be more efficient with my time. Since I do 3 at once, it takes a little longer to brown the meat and boil the noodles so you'll want to save all the time you can. Put your pot of water on high to get the water boiling - it takes awhile since you'll need so much water to contain all the noodles! After I get that on the stove I start chopping my onions and put them in the skillet with the turkey. I always have to drain the turkey multiple times while cooking because my skillet is not big enough and it will almost overflow with juices if you don't. At some point your water will begin to boil and you can add the noodles. I use a pasta spoon as well as tongs while stirring the noodles because 2 noodles always get stuck to each other and it's in a pain in the butt if you don't separate them while they're boiling... the spoon doesn't do it so I use tongs. Between watching the noodles and stirring/draining the meat, I mix the cottage cheese/parmesan cheese/parsley together so that is ready to go. Once the noodles are done, I dump those in a strainer and throw the meat in that pot along with the 2 jars of sauce to heat up a bit while the noodles cool (enough to handle). I don't bother letting it simmer for the full 15 minutes listed on the recipe (I'm too impatient for that), 2/3rds of it is going into the freezer anyway and the rest is getting thrown into the oven to warm up. I warm it for about 5 minutes before I start assembling Lasagna.
To assemble I throw a spoon full of the meat/sauce into the bottom of each pan so the noodles don't stick. Then I layer as described in the recipe. I'm always conservative in the beginning because I worry about running out, but then have extra cheese and sauce at the end so the tops have more than the bottoms but it does not effect the baking or taste at all so no biggie.
When were ready to have lasagna again I just pull one out of the freezer 24 hours ahead of time and put it in the fridge. Some nights I'm just so exhausted from the work day that the thought of cooking makes me want to just go right to bed (and you can only have Subway so many times in 1 week)! It's so nice being able to come home from work and just throw it in the oven - and 45 minutes later we have a delicious homemade dinner that I didn't have to put any effort into (at that time, anyway). It also says you can bake it from frozen for an hour and a half but I haven't tried that yet.
This Lasagna is definitely a Jer & Lindsay favorite!
This is so delicious!
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