Mmmmmmmmm… lasagna in cupcake form! I saw this on Pinterest (duh) and got the recipe from Lauren’s Latest. I changed it a little bit, mainly based on what I had on hand (or, more so, what I didn’t.)
If you have your own awesome lasagna recipe (because I think most people do), you can totally just use that… instead of your typical 9×13 pan, you use a muffin tin and get fancy looking (and delicious tasting) lasagna cups!
SAUCE:
~2 T olive oil
~1/2 onion, chopped
~1/2 pound ground beef, cooked & drained (I used slightly more than 1/2 lb)
~1/2 red bell pepper, chopped (love red peppers? might as well throw it all in there)
~ 1 small zucchini, diced
~2 cloves of garlic, minced (I looove garlic so I used more–like 4 cloves)
~1 6oz can tomato paste
~1 8oz can tomato sauce
~1 14.5oz can diced tomatoes
~1 T dried basil
~1/2 T dried oregano
~1 t sugar
~salt and pepper
CHEESE:
~1 10-oz tub Philadelphia Italian Herb & Cheese Cooking Cream (found right next to the cream cheese)–can substitute more of the other cheeses if you can’t find this
~1/3 c grated parmesan cheese
~3/4 lb grated mozzarella cheese
~1/3 c ricotta cheese
~ 1/2 t pepper
~1 egg
~21 lasagna noodles
1. Heat olive oil over medium heat and saute onions, pepper, zucchini, and garlic (about 5 minutes or until they’re soft).
2. Stir in the cooked ground beef and tomato paste until mixed.
3. Stir in the remaining SAUCE ingredients and simmer for 30 minutes.
4. For the CHEESE filling, stir all ingredients together except half of the grated mozzarella (save it for later).
5. Cook the pasta according to package directions–but may want to lessen cooking time by a few minutes.
6. Put your cupcakes together!
Set oven to 350 degrees and spray your muffin tin with cooking spray. NOTE: the original recipe used parchment paper, but I didn’t have any–spraying seemed to work just fine. Also, she used a jumbo muffin pan… I also do not own one of those, so I just used a regular muffin pan. It was probably more difficult and I couldn’t get all the sauce in, but I did get all the cheese filling in (priorities!! haha). I just saved the leftover meat sauce to use another night on pasta 🙂
Line each muffin tray with 1 noodle–the ends will overlap, but that’s okay.
Tear (or cut) the rest of the lasagna noodles into fourths. Start with one piece on the bottom of each muffin tray.
Put a spoonful of sauce on top of the noodle.
Put a spoonful of cheese filling on top of that sauce.
Top with another piece of lasagna noodle and repeat!
Then top them off with your leftover mozzarella cheese.
Bake for 25-30 minutes until it’s nice and bubbly.
************************************************************
These took me just about forever to make. Lasagna always takes forever, but… these took longer. While they were finally in the oven and baking, Steve made a comment that no food will ever be good enough to justify spending that much time making.
After they were done and he was eating? “I take it back, I take it back, these are incredible, please make them again!” 🙂 WIN! Ryan liked them too!
OMG! I love this idea!! I’m always looking for creative ways to entice my grandchildren to eat. Could anything be better than the word “cupcake”?!! Thanks!!
[Reply]
i love this! things seem so much yummier when they are smaller.. weird
[Reply]
oh wow, those look amazing!!
[Reply]
babydickey Reply:
December 6th, 2011 at 10:39 pm
thanks! they were delicious!
[Reply]
Looks delicious!
[Reply]
Looks really cool and yummy!
[Reply]
I love this! We’ve done meatloaf cupcakes iced with mashed potatoes and they were a ridiculous hit! We’ll have to venture into these next!
[Reply]
amazing looks great!
[Reply]
I think my husband would love these! They look like something that might be easy to take and warm for his lunch. Thanks for the recipe!
[Reply]
Very cool receipe… this is going right to my pinterest… I have always hated trying to scoop up a piece of lasagna… the only time it works is if its cold… great find
[Reply]
really lasagna in cupcake form! how creative !! love it!! def a recipe to try!
[Reply]
This recipe looks so good I will try it. Thank you.
[Reply]
A prvaicotove insight! Just what we need!
[Reply]