Make your own lasagne sheets (recipe from Italy)

Today I’m going to show you how easy it is to make traditional lasagne sheets yourself.

For the original recipe from Bologna, the lasagne sheets are made from a green spinach dough, but you can also simply choose the basic recipe for pasta dough with egg (without spinach).

You can find both recipes and step-by-step instructions with pictures in this article. Have fun!

These instructions are based on the official recipe of the Italian Academy of Cuisine.

Make your own lasagne sheets – here’s how

To make the lasagne sheets, you first have to make the pasta dough yourself, leave it to rest and then roll it out into thin sheets.

As I regularly make my own pasta, I use my Marcato Atlas 150 to roll it out – one of the best and cheapest investments for anyone who likes to eat fresh pasta.

The whole process takes around 60 minutes, including 30 minutes resting time for the dough. The lasagne sheets can then be pre-cooked and used for lasagne Bolognese, for example.

Ingredients for a large lasagne dish (6 to 8 people)

In Bologna, lasagne sheets are traditionally made from green pasta dough with spinach, here is the recipe:

If you prefer to make a dough without spinach, use the following basic recipe for pasta dough with egg:

Apart from cooking and mixing the spinach leaves, the preparation steps for both doughs are identical.

If you are preparing the dough without spinach, simply skip the first 8 steps and whisk the eggs in the flour well before incorporating the flour.

Instructions

Wash the spinach and boil it for about 3 minutes [1]. Drain it thoroughly and leave the spinach to cool briefly [2]. Then squeeze out the water by hand [3] so that little liquid remains inside [4].

Place the spinach [5] and eggs [6] in the blender and blend the egg mixture for about 30 seconds [7]until a homogeneous consistency is achieved [8].

Empty the flour onto the work surface [9] and form a well with a base in the middle [10]. Pour the egg mixture into the center [11] and gradually work in the flour from the outer wall with a fork [12].

Run the dough scraper under the mound of flour and fold the flour from each side onto the center of the hollow [13]. Now pass through the flour mixture several times to create a crumbly mixture [14]. Next, press the dough together with your hands [15] until a uniform lump of dough forms [16].

Knead the dough for at least 8 minutes. To do this, press the ball of dough forward with the ball of your hand [17], pull it back again with the other hand [18, 19] and press it forward again with pressure on the work surface [20].

The dough is ready as soon as the surface is smooth and no longer sticky. If you press against the dough with your finger, it should bounce back [21]. This means that it is elastic enough to be rolled out. Now wrap it in cling film and leave it to rest for at least 30 minutes [22, 23, 24].

Halve the pasta dough [25] and temporarily cover one half with a bowl [26] or wrap it in cling film to prevent the surface from drying out. The dough is easier to work with in smaller pieces.

Press the remaining half of the dough into a flat disk by hand [27] and pass it through the widest setting of the pasta machine [28]. On my Marcato Atlas 150, this is level 0.

Fold the dough ends towards the center [29, 30] and pass the folded dough through the widest setting of the pasta machine again [31]. This procedure produces a fairly rectangular band of dough [32]which can be used to make wonderful lasagne sheets.

Flour both sides of the dough sheet so that it doesn’t stick when you roll it out [33]. Now roll out the dough once through each additional stage until it is only about 1 millimeter thick (stage 5 on my machine) [34].

The roller width can be adjusted using the wheel on the side of the pasta machine [35]. In between, I usually divide the pasta sheet in half so that it doesn’t get too long (more difficult to handle) [36].

Now all you have to do is cut the dough sheets into rectangles of roughly the same size [37, 38, 39, 40]. You can adapt the shape of the lasagne sheets to your oven dish, but bear in mind that they will increase in size during pre-cooking.

The next step: Pre-cook the lasagne sheets

As a rule, you should always pre-cook homemade lasagne sheets before coating the lasagne.

In the following article, I will show you step by step how to do this:

• Do you have to pre-cook lasagne sheets? (Instructions in 4 steps)

Frequently asked questions

Here I answer some questions that are often asked on the subject.

More articles on the topic of lasagne

• Pasta dough for lasagna
• Lasagna layers: Which order is right?
• Lasagne baking time & temperature: how to prevent it from drying out
• How long does pasta dough need to rest?
• Roll out pasta dough correctly: With and without a pasta machine