Chicken sausage and lemon, baked as a lasagna
A lasagna that went on holiday and came back with a tan and a lemon habit.
At a Glance
Story
The sauce never sees a stove. Raw tomatoes, garlic and chile go into the blender, the oil and lemon juice are pulsed in after, and the only cooking any of it gets is half an hour in the oven, tossed through the pasta. That is why it tastes of fresh tomato rather than of long-simmered sauce.
Ingredients
- 1 cup whole-milk ricotta
- 2 tsp lemon zest
- ⅓ cup basilchopped, for the ricotta
- ½ cup Parmesangrated, for the ricotta
- 5 tbsp olive oildivided, plus more to drizzle
- 1 × 12 oz pack fully cooked chicken sausagesliced into coins (any flavor; one with basil, mozzarella and sun-dried tomato suits it best)
- 1 ¾ lb yellow cherry tomatoesabout 3 pints; red ones work out of season and the pan comes out orange
- 2 cloves garlicsmashed
- ¾ tsp red pepper flakes
- 2 tsp kosher salt
- ½ cup basilchopped, for the sauce
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
- 1 lb lasagna sheetsbroken into bite-size pieces (or mafaldine, if your shop has it)
- 1 cup Parmesangrated, for the pasta
- 8 oz fontinashredded
- kosher saltfor the pasta water
Method
Lasagna is a red, heavy, January sort of dish. This one is gold and sharp with lemon, and it is what I make when it is warm out and somebody still wants lasagna. The sausage is chicken and already cooked, so it only wants a few minutes in the pan for color.
The sauce is yellow cherry tomatoes blended raw, which is what keeps the whole pan gold.
- Stir the ricotta, zest, the ⅓ cup of basil and ½ cup of Parmesan together in a bowl and set it aside.
- Heat the oven to 425°F. Oil a 12-by-17-inch sheet pan with straight sides, using 1 tbsp of the oil, and put a large pot of well-salted water on to boil.
- Heat 1 tbsp of oil in a skillet over medium-high and brown the sausage coins 4 to 5 minutes, turning once, until both sides have color. Set them aside off the heat.
- Blitz the tomatoes, garlic, pepper flakes and salt in the blender for a full minute, until creamy and almost smooth with no skins left to speak of. Add the ½ cup of basil, the remaining 3 tbsp of oil and the lemon juice, pulse just to combine, and pour the sauce into a large bowl.
- Boil the pasta for 5 minutes only. Fish it out with a spider, straight into the bowl of sauce, then add ¼ cup of the pasta water, the 1 cup of Parmesan and the sausage. Toss well, adding more pasta water a splash at a time only if it looks tight. It should be loose.
- Spread it over the sheet pan. Dollop the lemon ricotta over the top, scatter the fontina over the whole pan and drizzle with a little more oil.
- Bake 30 minutes, giving the pan a half turn at the 15-minute mark, until golden and bubbling. Rest it 5 minutes, then cut it into squares.
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