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Vol. 26 · July 2026
A One-Pot Weeknight Journal Spice & Simmer Skillet · Stir-Fry · Sheet-Pan · Soup
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🍝 One-Pan Pasta · Pasta · Italian

Lasagne

By The Spice & Simmer Kitchen · Published May 3, 2026
Total time
32 min
Prep
11 min
Cook
21 min
Cleanup
1 pan
Lasagne

A one-pot Pasta recipe with Italian flavors, built for busy weeknights when you want real food without a sink full of dishes. Comes together in roughly 53 minutes, serves about 4, and uses ingredients you can find at any normal grocery store. The technique is simple: build a base in your pot, layer in the main ingredients, simmer until everything has had time to talk to each other, and serve straight from the pan. If you're cooking for picky eaters, this one tends to land — the flavors are recognizable, the texture is comforting, and there's nothing weird hiding in the ingredient list. Perfect for the kind of evening where you want dinner on the table by 7pm and the kitchen empty by 7:30.

Step-by-step instructions

  1. Heat the oil in a large saucepan. Use kitchen scissors to snip the bacon into small pieces, or use a sharp knife to chop it on a chopping board. Add the bacon to the pan and cook for just a few mins until starting to turn golden. Add the onion, celery and carrot, and cook over a medium heat for 5 mins, stirring occasionally, until softened.
  2. Add the garlic and cook for 1 min, then tip in the mince and cook, stirring and breaking it up with a wooden spoon, for about 6 mins until browned all over.
  3. Stir in the tomato purée and cook for 1 min, mixing in well with the beef and vegetables. Tip in the chopped tomatoes. Fill each can half full with water to rinse out any tomatoes left in the can, and add to the pan. Add the honey and season to taste. Simmer for 20 mins.
  4. Heat oven to 200C/180C fan/gas 6. To assemble the lasagne, ladle a little of the ragu sauce into the bottom of the roasting tin or casserole dish, spreading the sauce all over the base. Place 2 sheets of lasagne on top of the sauce overlapping to make it fit, then repeat with more sauce and another layer of pasta. Repeat with a further 2 layers of sauce and pasta, finishing with a layer of pasta.
  5. Put the crème fraîche in a bowl and mix with 2 tbsp water to loosen it and make a smooth pourable sauce. Pour this over the top of the pasta, then top with the mozzarella. Sprinkle Parmesan over the top and bake for 25–30 mins until golden and bubbling. Serve scattered with basil, if you like.

Why this works on a weeknight

Lasagne lands at about 32 minutes total — a little longer than our 30-minute target, but most of that time is hands-off simmering, which is why it earned a spot in our One-Pan Pasta collection. The technique is forgiving, the ingredient list is grocery-store standard, and the active cooking time is short enough that you can answer a text message in the middle without ruining dinner.

Cleanup notes

This is a single-pan recipe, so the cleanup is exactly one pan, one cutting board, and one knife. While the dish rests, fill the pan with hot soapy water — by the time you are done eating, the residue lifts off with a single pass of a sponge. Skip the steel wool on cast iron; a stiff brush and warm water are all you need to keep the seasoning intact.

Make-ahead and leftovers

Leftovers keep covered in the fridge for up to three days. Reheat in a dry pan over medium-low with a splash of water or stock to loosen the sauce. Lasagne actually improves overnight as the flavors keep talking to each other, so doubling the recipe and packing tomorrow's lunch is a high-leverage weeknight move.

Filed under 🍝 One-Pan Pasta Pasta Italian
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