Are you looking for a great Lodge Cast Iron Recipe? I’ve got an amazingly delicious one—Cast Iron Lasagna. A deliciously, cheesy lasagna made even easier when cooked in the cast iron skillet, rolled with pesto and surrounded with homemade bolognese, perfect for serving up a hot family dinner on the table in just 30 minutes!
My new favorite is cooking in my cast iron skillet. I mean, just the gorgeous seasoned edges and weight of a cast iron skillet transport me to an old-time countryside kitchen. And cooking up a full dish in one big pan has long been a favorite of mine (second to the cast iron skillet is the dutch oven!). There are just so many great things about Lodge Cast Iron recipes.
I used to find the idea of making lasagna SO labor and time-intensive, but for some reason, these moments with my son, mixing the filling and rolling the noodles…it wasn’t either of those things.
Would you believe me if I told you cooking this cast iron lasagna was actually a joy?
I loved making this meal with my son (he did too!), and I have some great tips to make it easier. Cooking with kids in the kitchen is always a joy, I mean, it’s messy and takes longer than usual, but their excitement for all things actually helps me feel excited about the little things too. There ARE ways to make it easier though.
The first is using a cast iron skillet for your main meal (which means fewer dishes overall).
Keep reading for this great cast iron lasagna recipe and the benefits of cooking with cast iron.
Table of Contents
Cast Iron Lasagna
Benefits of Cooking With Cast Iron
Some people might be scared of cooking recipes, but it’s really easy. And I love all of the benefits of cooking with cast iron. I hope you will too.
Durable
Cast iron skillets are made to last. Yes, they are more expensive than a cheap nonstick pan at your discount store, but it will outperform that pan a hundred times over.
They can take a beating, and have been known to pass down in a family from generation to generation.
Nonstick
After your pan is seasoned well, it creates a glossy nonstick finish. With each use, the pan can gain more of that wonderful seasoning, so it essentially gets better with age. This is unlike your traditional nonstick pan that may chip or leach the chemical-based nonstick finish into your food.
Yuck!
Added Iron
Yes, cooking with a cast iron pan can add iron to your diet. This is great for children, women (especially after giving birth), and anyone that is anemic. One study found this to be true though it may be difficult to quantify how much iron you receive from cooking with a cast iron skillet.
The amount of iron added to your food will vary with the liquid content, acidity, and duration of cooking your meal. Regardless, this is definitely a cool benefit of cooking with cast iron.
Retain Heat
Cast iron takes a little time to heat up evenly, but one of the amazing benefits of cooking with cast iron is that the cast iron pan retains heat for a long time. This is awesome for foods you would like to keep heated and served warm.
I especially love using my cast iron for dips and desserts. I mean seriously, who doesn’t love warm brownies or cookie dough?
Versatile
One of the coolest things about a cast iron skillet is how versatile it is. You can go from the stovetop into the oven. And you can cook at temperatures up to 1500 °F.
Shop of a few of our favorite Lodge cast iron skillets:
Everything You need to Know About Cast Iron Lasagna
Whether you’re some weeks into pantry cooking (which we’ve been doing plenty of lately, or grabbing fresh ingredients, this is a great recipe to use up ingredients you’ve got on hand. Like a certain type of meat or only have one kind in your freezer? Use it! Only have half a green pepper left? That works! I’m going to give you the basic recipe below, and you can swap or add until your heart’s content (or your pantry depleted).
You’ll also see we use a lot of Wellsley Farms products, which is a BJs Wholesale brand. If you have a big family (okay ANY size family) and don’t belong to a local wholesale club, what are you waiting for? We don’t buy everything there, but we DO get a lot in club!
When we stock up with classic staples, like cheese and peanut butter, I like to find items to use in new ways, like Wellsley Farms pesto, and I’m going to show you a few ways we’ve been using it… besides this cast iron lasagna.
You may have seen me talk about BJs before, and I’m excited to continue working with them. You guys, grabbing the essentials at BJs saves me time + money on everyday essentials for our big family, plus ordering on BJs.com for in-club pickup or delivery makes it SO easy.
Okay, so on to this recipe.
Delicious Cast Iron Skillet Lasagna Recipe
Pesto
Pesto makes adding flavor to this dish so easy! Whether you have fresh basil on hand or not, keeping pesto in the pantry (or in the fridge once you open it), is such a great way to try new recipes. Adding pesto (just basil and parmesan cheese) to the roll-ups in our skillet lasagna was SO GOOD, and I even added a little to the top of mine as well.
Bolognese
For the bolognese sauce, you can use ground beef, Italian sausage, ground turkey, chicken, or a mix of whatever kind of meat you have. Alternatively, you can omit the meat altogether. That’s the great thing about this recipe, substitute what you have or what you prefer.
Vegetables
Sneak in, or not-so-sneakily, vegetables! Besides the garlic and tomatoes, we like to chop up a little of what we have in the fridge. Carrots, onion, green pepper, red pepper, even adding spinach! All are great options and depending on how small you like to dice, it’s a great way to up the vegetable intake for the whole family.
Cooking With Kids
While cooking with your kids typically means more time and more mess, it’s also a great time to bond, teach new life skills, and gives them a sense of pride over the family meal.
Delicious Cast Iron Skillet Lasagna
Are you looking for a great Lodge Cast Iron Recipe? I've got an amazingly delicious one—Cast Iron Lasagna. A deliciously, cheesy lasagna made even easier when cooked in the cast iron skillet, rolled with pesto and surrounded with homemade bolognese, perfect for serving up a hot family dinner on the table in just 30 minutes!
Ingredients
- Olive oil
- 1 pound ground meat (beef, turkey, Italian sausage, or whatever you have)
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 28 ounces (2- 14 ounce cans) crushed tomatoes
- 2 teaspoons oregano
- 2 teaspoons thyme
- 12 uncooked lasagna noodles
- 2 cups ricotta cheese
- 1/2 cup grated Wellsley Farms parmesan cheese
- 3/4 cup Wellsley Farms pesto
- 4 ounces Wellsley Farms shredded mozzarella
- fresh thyme or basil, for serving
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.
- Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil to boil the pasta until al dense.
- Meanwhile, heat the olive oil in a cast iron skillet. Add ground meat and brown. Reduce heat to low and add seasonings and a pinch of salt and pepper. Simmer for 5 minutes, add the tomatoes and simmer 10 minutes or until the sauce thickens.
- Drain pasta and run under cold water to stop the cooking.
- In a medium bowl, combine the ricotta and parmesan.
- To assemble, spoon about 2 tablespoons of the cheese mix and the pesto down the length of the cooked lasagna noodle. Roll up each noodle and place in the skillet, covering with some of the sauce. Repeat with remaining noodles.
- Add another couple of tablespoons of pesto over the top, if desired. Sprinkle the mozzarella over the top.
- Place the skillet to the oven and bake 20 minutes. Enjoy!
Notes
The great thing about this recipe is that it's SO customizable! Don't want to include meat, leave it out, or use whatever meat you have on hand.
Want to use up that last red pepper, chop it up and add to the sauce, or carrots, or green pepper? Or toss in spinach instead. It's a great lasagna to make when you need to use up the veggies in your fridge.
Final Thoughts
Yumm-o.
This cast iron lasagna is surprisingly easy, and the kids loved it too. Making it with your little ones makes this meal extra special. And I hope you enjoy this cast iron lasagna recipe as much as we do.
Cast iron cooking is the absolute best. Hopefully, you took a moment to check out the benefits of cooking with cast iron (in case you are on the fence about it). If you are interested in other cast iron recipes, check out this post on Tender Pork Chops that go from stovetop into the oven all in one in a cast iron skillet.
Have you made cast iron lasagna before? What’s one of your current favorite recipes? Let me know in a comment below!
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