Fresh Tomato Homemade Lasagna Recipe

Made with fresh tomatoes, (though you can use canned), this homemade lasagna recipe with fresh mushrooms and bechamel sauce is the perfect summer lasagna!

There are so many lasagna recipes and they are all good, but in the summer I am partial to this easy lasagna recipe made with fresh tomatoes.

One could use canned tomatoes if need be, but either way, this is one delicious lasagna.

What makes it so perfect? Not laden with lots of extra cheese, this lasagna is made for tomato lovers. The simple sauce just shines.

The sauce isn’t burdened with the weight of the cheese. Nope! No mozzarella or ricotta in this lasagna recipe! Just a simple, white bechamel sauce to add flavor and richness.

Truthfully I prefer this lasagna with bechamel sauce instead of  cheese. But if you must, you can add a layer of mozzarella. I will let you!

No meat in this lasagna either, which I know lots of you love. In which case feel free to add a layer in the middle if you choose.

I however, prefer to add mushrooms. Porcini mushrooms add meatiness and flavor to this easy lasagna recipe, but if you can’t find those feel free to add in whatever your favorite mixture of mushrooms might be.

Dried mushrooms tend to have lots of concentrated flavor so see what you can find.

Don’t like mushrooms? Well, that’s easy to fix? Just leave them out!

This homemade lasagna is easily made with no boil noodles. I use Barilla and am quite happy with how tender they become.

Just make sure to cover them with very hot water and let them soak while you get your ingredients together. Then slide them through your fingers to remove the water before placing them into the lasagna dish. Make sure they are fully covered with sauce, so you don’t have any problems with them tasting dry and uncooked.

I don’t think I ate lasagna until I was 16 years old. I remember eating it at my best friend’s house. Her mom was Italian.

I remember her saying I had to come over because her mom, “WAS MAKING LASAGNA!” .

I’d heard about lasagna. I’d even eaten it in Hamburger Helper skillet dinner form.  My mom made that.

However, I never remember my mom making lasagna; but in all fairness my mom is Jewish and not Italian, and I can assure you her mom probably did not make lasagna-even the hamburger helper kind!

The only pasta dish I remember in our home that my mom made on a regular basis was spaghetti with meat sauce; which now that I think of it is pretty funny, because my mom loves pasta. I mean really loves pasta. No lie. I mean she didn’t even make macaroni and cheese!

Well, I learned to make lasagna in college. It feeds a lot and was always a hit. I don’t remember having a recipe.

When the kids were born I remember making a lot of other pastas, too. Zoe especially loved pasta so we had it  once a week. Under the age of five they ate a lot of mini tortellinis and raviolis.

And then it was beloved spaghetti with real Italian sausage in the fall. We all loved linguini with clam sauce. The kids even requested it for their birthday when they were 7 years old.

Ziti al Fresco is a huge fave and I still make it at least once a year. It contains cream and we try to avoid that so I don’t make it as often as I wish I could.

Fettucine Alfredo is Zoe’s favorite and that also contains cream, but oh my, it is worth it at least once a year.

I made lots of buttered noodles in shapes of every kind to make Zoe happy. I often resorted to spaghetti with garlic, because that is my fave and you almost never need anything from the grocery to make it.

Often enough I just took left overs from the fridge and came up with a pasta dish. Tomato sauce or that enemy, cream, ties everything together.

Manservant likes pasta. But he doesn’t like it all the time. Either does Alex Odie San China Boy. But I guess that doesn’t include Chinese lo mein of which they both eat a lot.

Noodle bowls and pot stickers are pasta, are they not? I often made a lo mein bar with numerous toppings and sauces and let the kids choose what they wanted. I would then throw it in a wok and we were all happy campers. Individualized, easy meals!

But back to lasagna. I didn’t make it often when the kids were young. I don’t know why.

Maybe because I wasn’t used to making such a big pan. Whatever the case, I did make a mushroom lasagna that was so rich and luscious, we had it for special meals.

It did contain porcinis and I rationed those out with an iron fist. I still always request a bag of porcinis when friends go to Italy. Receiving porcinis is like a gift from the gods!

Recently I received one of those bags of porcinis from friends who returned from Italy so I invited them for dinner while Manservant was home. (Well, I think he was home, but 2 weeks flies by fast. If I figure it right he will be gone 50% of this year. And that’s another episode!)

I knew she loved my mushroom lasagna but I was ready for something a bit lighter-more summery. Something I could use fresh tomatoes in. The bounty of summer-so to speak.

And so it is, I came up with this. No, it isn’t full of gobs of gooey cheese. This is a more healthy lasagna-if one can deem lasagna healthy. This one only contains Parmigiano which also falls into the gift from the gods category. I do love real  Parmigiano-Reggiano.

Have a bounty of tomatoes ready to come in? This lasagna is perfect for them.

I used Marcella Hazan’s easy tomato sauce which is killer, if you haven’t tried it. Her sauce is superb on any pasta.

So with all these words on this page, you must be thinking pasta for dinner. This veggie lasagna with no boil noodles is so worthy!

A few last words. If anyone says to you, “My mom is making lasagna!” just dash over. Lasagna is so worth it!