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Crockpot Lasagna is one of my FAVORITE easy dinners – homemade spaghetti sauce layered with a scrumptious cheese filling and UN-COOKED noodles all cook in your crockpot!
Crockpot Lasagna Recipe
Looking to make a crockpot Lasagna recipe that your family will love? Here's a super yummy recipe for Homemade Lasagna in the slow cooker that our family always enjoys, and I'm betting many of the ingredients are already in your pantry! (There's also a lasagna using ravioli in the Slow Cooker Meal Plan – it's a crowd pleaser too!)
There's nothing like walking in the door after running around all day and having actual honest-to-goodness lasagna steamy and ready to put on your plate (mmmm). P.S. Scroll to the bottom of this recipe y'all because I have got to tell you about the garlic disaster we got into making lasagna early in our marriage – whew!
🍴 Menu Plan Note: This recipe can also be found in Slow Cooker Menu Plan: Week 9!
How do you make crockpot lasagna?
The first thing you'll need to do is make the sauce.
*You can DEFINITELY choose to use jarred or canned sauce here, but if you have extra time one day, this homemade spaghetti sauce using beef and Italian sausage is absolutely fabulous!
Brown beef and Italian sausage together then add the onions, green bell peppers and garlic. Sauté until vegetables soften.
Next, add in all the tomatoes and let simmer while you prepare the cheese filling.
Layer uncooked lasagna noodles, cheese filling and sauce, repeating twice.
Cover and cook on low 3-4 hours.
How long does it take to make crockpot lasagna?
Our estimated prep time is about 30 minutes. But to make it even faster you could choose to use prepared spaghetti sauce instead of making a homemade sauce. The cooking time is only 3-4 hours on low so choose a day you'll be home since it has such a short cook time.
Can I put raw pasta in the slow cooker?
Yes, yes and yes! This is one of the beauties of cooking lasagna in the slow cooker. No need for cooking the noodles and making sure they don't get all sticky. Just lay those completely uncooked noodles on top of the sauce and they magically cook themselves!
If you don't have lasagna noodles on hand – make sure to check out this Slow Cooker Rigatoni recipe as well!
Can you use ricotta cheese instead of cottage cheese for this lasagna recipe?
You can absolutely use ricotta cheese in this slow cooker lasagna. But if you want to pinch a few more pennies, cottage cheese works wonderfully in this recipe as well. I've made lasagna for years using cottage cheese.
Print Recipe
Crockpot Lasagna
Prep Time30 minutes mins
Cook Time4 hours hrs
Course: Dinner
Cuisine: Italian
Servings: 8
Calories: 627kcal
Equipment
slow cooker
Ingredients
- 1 lb lean ground beef
- 1 lb ground Italian sausage
- 1 large yellow onion, diced
- 1 green bell pepper, diced
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 28 oz can tomato sauce
- 3 oz tomato paste
- 14 oz can crushed tomatoes
- 2 tsps dried oregano
- 1 Tbsp Italian seasoning
- 1 Tbsp red or white wine vinegar
- 2 Tbsps sugar (optional)
- 8 oz uncooked lasagna noodles
- 2 cups 1% cottage cheese
- 8 oz pkg shredded mozzarella cheese
- ¼ cup grated Parmesan cheese
Instructions
In a large pot over medium heat, brown ground beef and Italian sausage. When meat is mostly done, add onion, green pepper and garlic; cook until slightly softened.
Add in tomato sauce, tomato paste, crushed tomatoes, oregano, Italian seasoning, vinegar, sugar (optional) and 1 cup water. Allow sauce to simmer while you prepare the cheese filling.
Stir together cottage cheese, 1 ½ cups mozzarella cheese and Parmesan cheese in a bowl.
Spray slow cooker lightly with cooking spray. Add 1 ½ cups sauce to bottom of slow cooker, then layer 3-4 lasagna noodles on top, ⅓ of the cheese mixture and 1 cup sauce. Repeat layers twice more.
Top with remaining sauce, and sprinkle ½ cup mozzarella cheese on top.
Cover and cook on low 3-4 hours.
Notes
We recommend using a good quality tomato sauce here, such as Muir Glen. This sauce can be used as the base of other pasta recipes as well.
Nutrition
Calories: 627kcal
How do I keep the bottom of my lasagna from burning?
Burnt lasagna is the last thing you'll want to come home to at the end of the day. Be sure to add a layer of sauce to the bottom of your crock before starting to assemble the lasagna. Also, DO NOT overcook. This could definitely cause the bottom to burn.
Can I freeze this lasagna recipe to make in the crockpot later?
You can most definitely freeze lasagna. Assembling the lasagna in the crock using a crock-pot liner will make transferring and cooking easier. Place the whole crock in the freezer until the lasagna is pretty frozen. Once the lasagna is frozen solid, remove the bag of lasagna from the crock and place in a large zip-top bag or disposable aluminum pan. Pop back in the freezer until ready to cook.
When you're ready to cook, DO NOT THAW. Cover and cook in the slow cooker 4-5 hours on high.
Okay, here’s my funny lasagna story y'all….
Each year for our Christmas get together with my Dad’s family, everyone always got to pick WHATEVER THEY WANT for Christmas breakfast. This means that my son might ask for pizza, I usually got cinnamon rolls, my hubby always asked for country ham, and my little girl might want cool whip (Poppa & Grandma go that far to give the grand kids WHATEVER THEY WANT!).
Well, one year early in our marriage, my dad decided he wanted lasagna (yes, for breakfast) and that James & I should be in charge of making it. We were out of garlic cloves, so decided we could just use minced garlic. James wasn’t sure exactly how much a “clove” was, so he guessed it was the size of a FULL HEAD OF GARLIC! Into the mix went about 8 TABLESPOONS OF MINCED GARLIC.
As the lasagna was baking our tiny ranch house began to smell strongly of garlic, and it was so bad that we had to leave the windows open on our drive out to their house or we probably would have died of garlic inhalation (it was 28 degrees outside). Anyways, in case you’re not sure, a clove of garlic is one of the little pieces you pull off the garlic, NOT THE WHOLE HEAD!
Looking for more yummy meals?This recipe is fromweek nine of our slow cooker menu plans, including this meal + 59 other AMAZING recipes (and 12 desserts too)! You'll also get lifetime membership in our private Facebook group, full of other families encouraging one another to make dinner each night together too.
These are theBEST MENU PLANSon the planet(and, theonlymenu plan that ship all the grocery lists, menu plans and recipe cards right out to you ~ no downloading or hunting down recipes on your phone at dinnertime ever again!) GoHEREto learn more. I know you're going to love these!
Love this crockpot lasagna recipe? You might love these too!
- Cheesy Baked Spaghetti Recipe
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