Dinner Dash
Dinner… the bane of the working mom’s daily life.
Okay, I may be exaggerating just a little bit. Maybe. But why in the world is it such a struggle to get dinner on the table on week nights? I mean, we wake up early to get ready for the day and prod sleepy/angry children to get ready in a reasonable amount of time while fixing breakfast and juggling lunch packing with applying our makeup and “styling” our hair into a pony tail (again) before stuffing signed school papers (that we may or have not have actually even read) into back packs and hustling everyone out the door.
And that’s just the beginning hour of the day.
We’re freaking busy, so it’s no wonder that by the time we get home at the end of the day the last thing many of us want to think about is cooking dinner. I love to cook, but on weeknights, it’s such a chore!
Easy Dinner Wins
With all that we have to do in a day, I want to make dinner EASY and AFFORDABLE! Who’s with me?! I pulled together some “spare time” (what is that?) last week and started cooking up the most easy and relatively cheap meals that you will love. This Lazy Lasagna is one of my favorites!
It’s so lazy, I didn’t even thaw the frozen ravioli.
(Looking for more super easy dinner recipes? Check out Lazy Pierogi or the “Dinner” section.)
The most difficult part of this lazy recipe is browning the ground beef and adding your favorite marinara sauce. I love Prego Traditional, but Aldi’s spaghetti sauce is my favorite because of the price.
Once you’ve made the meat sauce, the “lasagna” comes together as you layer the sauce between cheese ravioli layers. So basically, we have a bottom later of pasta, cheese, and pasta because of the ravioli. Then a meaty sauce layer before a top layer of pasta, cheese, and pasta (thank you, ravioli for making this easy!). Finally, top the Lazy Lasagna with spaghetti sauce and a hearty amount of shredded mozzarella cheese before popping the whole dish into the oven to bake.
Add a green salad and some Italian bread and dinner is served!
Lazy Lasagna
Ingredients
1 pound lean ground beef
1 jar (approx. 24 oz.) spaghetti sauce
1 bag (approx. 25 oz.) frozen cheese ravioli (no need to thaw)
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- In a medium skillet, crumble and brown the ground beef over medium heat until completely browned. Drain off any excess fat.
- Reserve 1/2 cup of the spaghetti sauce; set aside. Stir remaining spaghetti sauce into the ground beef; simmer on low for 5-10 minutes.
- In a glass 9×13 baking dish, arrange half of the frozen ravioli in one single layer.
- Top the ravioli in the baking dish with the meat sauce and spread evenly.
- Arrange the rest of the ravioli over the meat sauce in a single layer.
- Spoon the reserved spaghetti sauce over the top layer of ravioli. Sprinkle the mozzarella cheese over the top of the Lazy Lasagna.
- Bake at 350 for 30 minutes until the cheese is melted and begins to brown.
Makes 8 servings.
Do you have other great weeknight quick and easy meal ideas? Tell me in the comments! I’m always looking for more great recipes to try and share.
What a great way use ravioli. I need to show this to the teen so he can make this for dinner.
Wow what an amazing and easy recipe!!!I love to eat lasagna but it usually takes way to long to make… this looks like a perfect recipe…
WELL THAT’S GENIUS! I am going to have to try this. I love lasagna but I am not a fan of how long it takes to make it. I am totally doing this.
I can eat lasagna for breakfast, lunch and dinner! What a lovely easy peasy recipe. Can’t wait to try it for lunch tomorrow 🙂
Lazy lasagna looks delish! So easy and perfect during a busy week.
What a clever idea! This totally makes sense – I don’t know why I haven’t thought about it before.
This recipe looks awesome and I am totally going to try it. But a really awesome shortcut would be to not even use ground beef – we use veggie crumbles. Yum – and straight out of the freezer section.
Veggie crumbles?! What are those?? I wanted to try this recipe for dinner tonight and would love to try it your way, as we are avoiding meat as much as possible these days 🙂
Yes, veggie crumbles would be great! You can find them in the vegetarian section in the freezer area of most grocery stores. They resemble ground beef but are vegetarian. I would just heat them in a pan, add the spaghetti sauce, then continue on with the recipe as normal.
As far as I know, veggie crumbles to contain soy. So if you’re avoiding soy, just saute some chopped green and yellow zucchini squash in oil until softened, add the spaghetti sauce, then make the “lasagna” as usual. This would be a delicious meat-free meal! I might actually prefer the vegetarian version. 🙂
This is brilliant! Just the other day my boyfriend was asking if I could make lasagna for dinner sometime soom=n, so I’ll definitely be trying this out!
WELL THAT’S GENIUS! I am going to have to try this. I love lasagna but I am not a fan of how long it takes to make it.
I agree! Lasagna is AH-MAZE-ING, but it is quite a process to make. I enjoy making lasagna on a weekend when I have time to play music and have a glass of wine while tinkering on the perfect lasagna as a method of relaxation. BUT for a crazy busy weeknight? Lazy Lasagna all the way.
I am going to have to try this. I love lasagna but I am not a fan of how long it takes to make it.