We eat a lot of Italian inspired food around here. These Sausage and Zucchini Lasagna Roll-ups are one of our favorites.
Sausage and zucchini make a great pair, add a little ricotta cheese, wrap it in pasta and you are on your way to delicious dinner the whole family will rave about.
We love to use Amazing Spaghetti Sauce in this recipe, but a bottle of your favorite spaghetti sauce will work just great.
If you have never worked with lasagna noodles, let me break it to you that it can be a little frustrating. If you aren’t careful all the noodles will stick together and start ripping when you try to pull them apart. There are a couple things you can do to help with this.
#1: Right after you drain the cooked noodles, use tongs or another utensil to put each noodle up over the pan, like so (see picture below) this is a little tricky because the noodles are hot, but it works well.
#2: Drain the steaming hot water off of the noodles, rinse noodles with cold water and then add cold water (just enough to cover them) to the drained noodles. (It’s a little tricky to spread the filling on a really wet noodle so I prefer #1, but if you don’t like handling the hot noodles, this is a good alternative.
This meal comes together really fast and because everything is precooked, it doesn’t need to spend much time in the oven.
More Italian Favorites
- 12 lasagna noodles, cooked to al-dente according to package directions
- 1 lb Italian Sausage links, remove casings
- ½ cup chopped onion
- 2 cloves garlic, crushed
- 2 cups zucchini, cut into ½ inch chunks or slices
- 1 16 ounce container of Ricotta Cheese
- ¼ cup Parmesan cheese, optional
- 1 tsp sugar
- ½ tsp salt
- ¼ tsp ground black pepper
- 3-4 cups of your favorite spaghetti sauce
- 2 cups shredded Mozzarella cheese
- Parsley for garnish, optional
- In a large frying pan, cook sausage, onion and garlic until sausage is mostly cooked, add zucchini and continue cooking on medium heat until zucchini is cooked and tender.
- Add Ricotta cheese, Parmesan if you choose to use it, sugar, salt and pepper.
- Stir until well combined.
- Place 1 cup of spaghetti sauce in the bottom of a 9x13 pan
- spread 1/12 of the filling on a lasagna noodle (I do this on a cutting board..see picture) and roll up the noodle and place it on the sauce in the 9x13 pan. Repeat with remaining 11 lasagna noodles.
- When all 12 noodles are in the pan cover with remaining spaghetti sauce, cover with foil and put in 350 degree oven for 20 minutes.
- Remove foil and sprinkle the roll-ups with mozzarella cheese and return to oven for 5-10 minutes or until cheese is melted
- Sprinkle with parsley for garnish if desired.
Don't forget dessert
Great tips for keeping lasagne noodles intact!
When cooking any pasta I add a little oil to the water — helps to keep noodles from sticking together.
Perfect dinner choice!!
This sounds like the perfect meal that I need to make and freeze before the baby comes!
I always have the same trouble with my lasagna noodles! Great tips- and your lasagna roll ups look awesome!
We love lasagna and I always forget to make roll-ups…yours look great, Marjorie!!
GREAT noodle tips. I grew up doing this to lasagna noodles to let them cool for use. And the rollups look delightful.
These look SO good! Italian (or Italian-inspired) food is my absolute favorite and these roll-ups look like a fun way to change things up. Great tips on how to deal with the noodles, too!
I look forward to eating this at least once every two weeks. It’s one of our favorites! So good. #julygiveaway