Slow Cooker Lasagna

Lasagna is one of those comfort foods that just about everyone loves. It has a smell that lures you to the table, and everyone smiles when you take the steaming pan out of the oven. Sometimes it's hard to have the patience to let it stand long enough to cut it properly. Unfortunately, you don't always have time to spend an afternoon preparing and cooking lasagna, but there is another option. You can make this pasta dish in a slow cooker.

Description
Lasagna is a baked pasta dish. It is made by alternating layering long, flat noodles with other ingredients Traditional Italian lasagna contains tomato sauce, cheeses and most often ground meat that has been browned. Creamy ricotta and stringy mozzarella are the commonly used in the filling of lasagna. It is often topped with a stronger hard cheese such as Romano or Parmesan, but you can make lasagna out of whatever you'd like, including vegetables and seafood. Lasagna is also sometimes topped with a white b©chamel sauce.

Benefits
Slow cook lasagna is easier to assemble. You simply layer the ingredients into a pot rather than stopping to evenly spread each thing throughout the pan. You don't have to preheat an oven or cover a pan in foil. Slow cooker lasagna will make itself while you are running errands or working. Just put the pot on low temperature. It may take up to six hours to cook completely, but check it after four hours to see if the noodles are tender.

Tips
You can use oven-ready noodles in your slow cooker so you don't have to worry about precooking the pasta. Beef and sausage are commonly added to lasagna and can be put in your slow-cooker lasagna, but it will need to be browned before it goes in the pot. When your lasagna is ready, shut the slow cooker off and let it stand for about 10 minutes before serving so it firms up and serves more easily.

Health Conscious
You can make all types of lasagna in a slow cooker. Consider adding vegetables for added vitamins. Also save calories -- and time -- by leaving out the meat. Use chopped, fresh mushrooms to replace some or even all of the meat to cut down on the fat. Experiment with different cheeses, sauces and vegetables so you have a few different kinds of slow-cooker lasagna recipes to make.