Michael Carr is a professional Michelin-star chef who learned his skills from Gordon Ramsay. Now, Michael has described his tricks for making an incredible lasagna, so that you too can cook like a master chef.
Michael said: “For me, the perfect lasagna recipe comes down to three things” the right pasta, the right ragu and the perfect cheese sauce.
First and foremost, Michael explained the first important aspect of lasagna is the multiple layers. He said: “I hate getting a lasagna and it’s only two layers of pasta. That’s not okay. So lots and lots of layers of pasta and really good quality pasta sheets.”
Michael went on: “Your bolognese sauce, your ragu, wants to be a really sort of thick consistency.” He named some “really good things” to consider adding to your sauce, such as tinned tomatoes, peppers, mushrooms, celery and carrots.
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The chef added to get “lots of vegetables in there” to make it an incredible-tasting sauce. However, the Michelin-star had two unusual ingredients he suggests you can add to elevate your lasagna.
He said: “When you’re making a ragu for either like a lasagna or a bolognese or even if you’re doing something like a shepherd’s pie that’s quite warm and homely…dark chocolate and soy sauce are absolute winners.”
Michael explained his reasoning for the strange ingredients. He said: “They react. You’re getting that really in-depth fat and umaminess that helps the meat and really sing with the flavour. It’s an absolute trick.”
The cooking expert said that when making pasta for his family or loved ones, adding these ingredients was an “absolute winner”. He said: “They’re like ‘Oh my God, this so delicious, what have you put in it?”
When it comes to the perfect cheese sauce, Michael said: “Keep all of those layers lovely and moist so your pasta cooks evenly by putting in cheese as you go through, not just on the top [of the lasagna].
“I put a little bit of English mustard into mine. And then, lots of different cheese. I put mascarpone into mine, parmesan, and cheddar so you get that really lovely creaminess and that sort of gooeyness.”
The Michelin-star chef explained another trick he liked to do to make amazing lasagna was to add spinach, but not blend it into the sauce. He said: “I put spinach in between my layers.”
He described his guide to building the best-layered lasagna. He said: “I’ll do ragu, pasta, spinach, ragu, pasta, spinach, cheese sauce, ragu, pasta, spinach, cheese sauce, and then on the top cheese sauce again and then I bake it.”
“You’ve got all these incredible layers. Almost like a milfoil of incredible tastiness building its way to the top. That’s the trick to a really good lasagna.”