Method

Sauce

• Brown both the ground beef and Italian sausage in your pot or pan you are using for the sauce with a little olive oil to stop the meat from sticking
• Pour in the 30oz tomato sauce, granulated onion, granulated garlic, 1/2tsp black pepper, basil, and oregano and bring to a simmer while occasionally stirring
• After you see small bubbles in the sauce, turn the heat to low, cover, and cook for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally

Noodles

• In your mixing bowl, add your flour and salt. Make a crater in your flour and crack the eggs in the crater
• Beat the eggs and slowly incorporate more and more flour until the mixture is dry enough to need with your hands
• If you find that not all of the flour is incorporating, add small amount of olive oil and water until barely incorperated
• Let rest 5 minutes while you set up your noodle maker
• Cut noodle block into 4 chunks. Run each chunk through the noodle maker on the widest setting, putting flour on both sides of the noodles as they come out
• Continue running the noodles through the noodle maker and flouring until you have gone through at least half of the thickness settings for your noodle maker. Mine goes from 1-9, 9 being the thinnest, and I usually stop at 6 or a 7. You may also find that you can skip multiple numbers each passthrough
• These noodles will be cooked in the oven and do not need to be boiled

Cheese

• Combine the riccota cheese, half of your grated parmesan or romano, and 1/2tsp salt and 1/2tsp pepper until your mixture is evenly distributed
• Mix the remaining parmesan with your mozzarella

Assembly and Baking

• Preheat oven to 350
• Begin by putting roughly 1/3 of your meat sauce at the bottom of the pan
• Layer noodles over it until covered
• Layer 1/2 of your ricotta mixture on top of the noodles, spreading evenly
• Place roughly 1/4 of your mozzarella mixture on top of the ricotta mixture
• Cover cheese layer with another layer of noodles
• Repeat this for one more layer each, you should have 2 layers of meat sauce and 2 layers of cheese now
• For the final layer, I leave it open faced. Pour the remaining 1/3 of your meat sauce on the layer, spread evenly, then top with your remaining mozzarella
• Bake covered in tin foil for 40 minutes. I usually put in wooden toothpicks to keep the foil off of the cheese
• Uncover, bake an additional 10 minutes or until the top is slightly golden brown. If you don’t like golden brown cheese, bake less time
• Leave set at room temperature for 15 minutes. This ensures that the slices remain together and the cheese and meat sauce do not drain out of the layers