Lasagne
lah-ZAH-nyeh
Wide flat sheet, plain or with a ruffled edge.
85 mm wide, 1.1 mm thick
Name. From the Latin lasanum, a cooking pot, or the Greek laganon, a flat sheet of dough. Lasagne is the plural; lasagna is one sheet, and the American name for the dish.
What it is
Lasagne are wide sheets of pasta, the oldest shape on record, and the name of the dish made by layering them with sauce and cheese and baking. Bologna makes them from green spinach egg pasta with ragu, bechamel, and parmesan. Naples layers them with ricotta, meatballs, and mozzarella for Carnival.
Dried sheets need boiling first unless sold as no-boil. Fresh egg sheets go straight into the dish.
How to cook lasagne
30 to 45 minutes in boiling salted water. Take the shorter time for al dente, the longer time for fully cooked.
30:00
Start when the water returns to the boil.
Water and salt
- Pasta, dry
- 400 g
- Water
- 4 L
- Salt
- 40 g
100 g per person as a main. A litre and 10 g of salt per 100 g. Adjust with the portion calculator.
The steps
- Bring 4 L of water to a full boil in a tall pot. Add 40 g of salt when it boils.
- Add the lasagne. Stir for the first minute so nothing sticks. Start the timer when the water returns to the boil.
- Bite a piece at 29 minutes. A hairline of white at the centre is al dente.
- Scoop out a cup of the cooking water. Drain, or lift the pasta straight into the pan.
- Toss with the sauce over the heat for a minute. Add cooking water a splash at a time until it clings.
Read more: what al dente means and why the pasta water matters. Times for every shape are on the cook page.
How it holds sauce
A sheet is a layer. It needs a sauce that spreads flat and bakes: ragu, bechamel, tomato, ricotta. Nothing that has to cling.
Pairs with: Baked (al forno) · Ragu alla bolognese · Ragu napoletano · Cream sauce · Pesto alla genovese
Classic plates: Lasagne alla bolognese, Lasagna napoletana, Lasagne al pesto, Lasagne ai funghi, Vincisgrassi.
By brand: numbers, cook times, spec sheets
3 brands, 5 product pages. Cook times run from 4 to 24 minutes across brands, so read the box, not a rule. A blank cell is a figure the brand does not state.
| Brand | Product | No. | Cook | Length | Width or Ø | Wall |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| De Cecco | Lasagne no. 1 | 1 | 24 min | |||
| Rummo | Lasagne All'Uovoegg | 173 | 20 min | 175 mm | 80 mm | 0.85 mm |
| La Molisana | Lasagneartisan line | 219 | 4 min | |||
| La Molisana | Lasagne N.220 All'Uovoextra di lusso | 220 | 4 min | |||
| La Molisana | Lasagne Festonateartisan line | 222 | 7 min |
Nutrition
Per 100 g of dry semolina pasta. The shape does not change these numbers. The dough does, so a whole wheat or egg version of this shape reads differently. See every dough.
| Per 100 g | Energy | Protein | Carbohydrate | Fibre | Fat | Sodium | Iron |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dry | 371 kcal | 13.0 g | 74.7 g | 3.2 g | 1.5 g | 6 mg | 3.3 mg |
| Cooked | 158 kcal | 5.8 g | 30.9 g | 1.8 g | 0.9 g | 1 mg | 1.3 mg |
One portion. 100 g dry becomes about 235 g cooked, 371 kcal and 13 g of protein. Pasta takes on 2.3 times its weight in the pot.
Who makes lasagne
147 lasagne products are catalogued, most of them sold in Switzerland, France, Germany. Of those, 7 are gluten-free, 8 are organic, 15 are made in Italy.
Brands: Coop (6), La Trattoria (5), Waitrose (4), Barilla (4), Qualite Prix (4), Catelli (3), Lidl (3), By Sainsbury S (3), Asda (3), Anna S Best (3).
No lasagne? Use these
Ranked by how they behave with sauce, not how they look. Full substitute list.
Side by side
Easy to confuse with
Other names
bardele, capellasci (Liguria), lagana (Apulia), lasagna, lasagna noodles, lasagne ricce, lasagne sheets, lasagnoni (Veneto), no-boil lasagna, sagne (Salento), sciablo, sciabo, the fluted version can also be doppio festone.
Sources
- Lasagne no. 1, De Cecco (cook time, catalogue number, from the brand's own product page)
- Lasagne All'Uovo (egg), Rummo (cook time, catalogue number, spec sheet dimensions, from the brand's own product page)
- Lasagne (artisan), La Molisana (cook time, catalogue number, from the brand's own product page)
- Lasagne N.220 All'Uovo (extra di lusso), La Molisana (cook time, catalogue number, from the brand's own product page)
- Lasagne Festonate (artisan), La Molisana (cook time, catalogue number, from the brand's own product page)
- Cook time: oven, layered and baked.
- Photograph: Lasagne.png, Popo le Chien, CC0.
- Open Food Facts (products, brands, labels), Open Database License, read on 2026-08-25.
- USDA FoodData Central (nutrition per 100 g, by dough: FDC 169736, Pasta, dry, enriched; FDC 169737, Pasta, cooked, enriched, without added salt), public domain. The cooked yield is derived from the two energy figures.
- Lasagna, Wikipedia (names, origin), CC BY-SA 4.0
- Dimensions: brand spec sheets and measured boxes. Blank fields are unmeasured, never guessed.