This Simple Lasagna Casserole makes it possible for me to offer this proclamation: If life gets any easier, we will all have to find new hobbies.
Just kidding. No doubt we all have plenty to fill our days. It’s just that all these Simple Meals take so little time and energy to prepare, we are all shocking ourselves with how quickly we can put a delicious, real food meal on the table!
Prep time for this Simple Lasagna Casserole recipe takes a tiny 5 minutes. Cook time in the Instant Pot takes another 5 minutes. Good grief, I barely have time to get out salad fixings, plates, and forks before my Instant Pot beeps to tell me that dinner is ready.
On the other hand, sometimes it’s nice to start dinner ahead of time, leave, and come back to it a few hours later. That’s where the Crock Pot comes in. I can start this casserole cooking in my crock pot (which also takes only 5 minutes of effort), walk away, do a load of laundry, answer a dozen emails, leave the house, scream for my boys at a soccer game, and come home to a ready-made dinner.
NOTE: One of the tricks to making this meal so fast and easy to put together is having Cooked Hamburger Meat already prepared and ready to stir into this dish. If you have an Instant Pot, I highly recommend cooking it this way to get ahead on your hamburger. If you don’t have an Instant Pot, I still recommend cooking hamburger meat ahead of time on the stove-top, then freezing it in meal size portions to make dinner prep easier!
Cook Time Options for Simple Lasagna Casserole
Instant Pot: 5 minutes
Crock Pot: 3-4 hours
- 16-ounces UNCOOKED whole grain pasta, any shape
- 1 pound cooked hamburger meat
- 50-ounces spaghetti sauce
- 1 cup water
- 16-ounces cottage cheese
- Sea salt to taste
- 2 cups shredded cheese (your favorite)
- Stir uncooked pasta, spaghetti sauce, water, cooked meat, sea salt, and cottage cheese in a crock pot or instant pot. Cook as follows:
- Crock Pot: Cook on low for 3-4 hours.
- Instant Pot: Cook on Manual at high pressure for 5 minutes.
- Once time is up for either Crock Pot or Instant Pot, stir mixture and top with cheese, covering dish so the cheese will melt.
- Serve!
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I’m SO trying this! I came to your site tonight to tell you I made your salsa chicken recipe in my instant pot – only to find that someone else posted that little tidbit – back in 2013! But lasagna?!? My kids are gonna be so thrilled! ????
Did you do a quick release or natural release on IP?
Yay! Just what I need, both the crock and instant pot options! Woo Hoo! Hmm, what will my new hobby be?
This sounds amazing!!
I do quick release, though I’ve found that not a lot of pressure builds up while this is cooking so there’s not much to release anyway! :)
This sounds awesome! Again, thank you so much for the multiple options. The crockpot gets a lot of use at our house and I am always looking for new recipes.
Occasionally I do shop at Aldi’s, my daughter shops there all the time, she says they have the freshest legs. and she buys the black beans, and always milk, there milk is usually always cheaper there than anywhere….except we were at Walmart the other day and they had gal.milk for a dollar….and eggs were .49 doz…..she bought both…..and several of each….
She doesn’t buy much meat there, don’t know why, but she does buy meats at Kroger….you said you paid $5.99 lb for hamburger that is high, we get it at Kroger cheaper….do you have a Kroger store near you ? And yes their butter is too, so is Kroger’s brand…I get it on sale there for $2.50 when LandoLakes is almost $4.00…..I refuse to buy it…..I usually buy 2 lbs. at a time and open and put the sticks in a wide mouth mason jar, they keep a long time and are just as fresh as the day I bought them….I store a lot of things like that in my fridge and cabinets….love the mason jars….hate the plastic…..so that is my word for the day LOL.
I have not tried Aldi’s salsa tho, pretty sure my daughter buys it, I will try it the next time tho…..
The higher price of my hamburger is because it is 100% grass fed. Worth it, but higher in cost for sure!
I tried this recipe in my instant, but ran into a slight problem. My instant keeps saying it’s getting over heated so my noodles just aren’t getting cooked. I didn’t deviate at all from the recipe and directions. Is there something that I’m missing? Didn’t know if you or anyone else had any tips to keep this from happening. Not sure how to fix this since everything is already mixed together (except the shredded cheese. I can’t exactly pull out all the noodles to cook them in the stove at this point. At least, not easily by any means. Thanks!
Update, in case anyone else runs into this problem. After it overheated the first time (noodles were still hard), I added another cup of water and put in for another 5 minutes. It over heated again, but noodles were softer, though not yet done. I added another cup of water again and put it in for 3 minutes. It overheated a third time, but the noodles were cooked this time. So you can get them cooked, but I don’t have a solution for keeping it from overheating in the first place I want to keep using this recipe, so I’m open to any suggestions anyone might have. :)
Well, shucks!! It always works just fine for me as the recipe is written. So sorry it didn’t work for you but very glad you were able to find a solution. And I REALLY hope it tastes great after all the extra trouble you had to go through!!
This sounds delicious, can’t wait to try it! Wondering if I could use ricotta instead of cottage cheese? I have to have ricotta with my lasagna…yum!