What's the best way to par-bake a lasagna?
I want to partially bake it at home in the morning and put it in the fridge. Then I want to bring it to their house that night and bake it the rest of the way.
Is this feasable? Assuming normal baking time is around 50 minutes, how long should I par-bake it for?
If it matters, my recipe is based on this one:
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Worlds-Best-Lasagna/Detail.aspx
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M$3 Answers
Dry pasta is cooked when it is re-hydrated. Usually, we do this by boiling pasta quickly in water. However, lasagna (and other casserole types of dishes) rehydrate slowly in the warm sauce that they are placed in. This causes the sauce to soak in and flavor the noodles.
With this in mind, my suggestion is to use fresh noodles rather than dried noodles.
Cook your filling (completely) separately. Store the fresh noodles separately from your filling until you're just about ready to leave for your friends house. Combine noodles and filling quickly before leaving and (heat) the assembled lasagna for a short period of time (maybe 15 min).
Over this time, the sauce should absorb into the fresh noodles properly. Since the noodles don't need to be re-hydrated as completely as dry noodles and the filling doesn't need to be cooked at all, it should come together nicely.
A complete but educated guess.
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M$
Have you thought about cooking it in a slow cooker? You'll need a slow cooker with a ceramic insert that you can remove to stick under the broiler in your oven at the last so it can brown. But it takes 4-6 hours--make a larger quantity so that you can set it for 6 hours. Then when you get home, stick it under the broiler for a few minutes to brown, stick the insert back in the pot, and take it with you. Hamilton-Beach makes a great slow cooker that is programmable and will cycle to "Keep Warm" at the end of cooking time, and seals tightly for transport as well. I love mine!
Here is a link to an article that describes a little more about doing lasagne in the slow cooker: http://www.a-crock-cook.com/crock-pot-lasagna-recipe.html
And here is a link with a recipe. You don't want to read it for the recipe (because yours must be fabulous already if you're making it by request) but for the comments and reviews below, where people describe experiments they did with this and how it affected the outcome:
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Slow-Cooker-Lasagna/Detail.aspx
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M$
If you have 6-inch ramekins, do individual portions - way easier. You can bake for about 15 minutes the day before (foil-covered) then about 15 minutes right before serving (no foil).
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M$
