How to Make Lasagna with Aldi Reggano Oven Ready Lasagna Noodles

Last Updated on December 26, 2023

EDITOR’S NOTE: We’ve seen recent boxes of Reggano Oven Ready Lasagna Noodles indicating that you should add only 1/4 cup of water or milk for every 5 noodles used in your recipe, instead of 1/2 cup as directed on older boxes. While we haven’t yet tested this with reduced water or milk, we think the recipe in the post below should still work with those new guidelines. If you try it, please leave a comment and let us know how it turned out for you. 

A few years ago, Aldi introduced some oven ready lasagna noodles that are intended to make homemade lasagna much easier to put together. Reggano Oven Ready Lasagna Noodles don’t need to be boiled prior to assembling and baking your lasagna, thus cutting down significantly on preparation time (and potentially burned fingers).

When these lasagna noodles first hit Aldi store shelves, the back of the box had an excellent lasagna recipe that I cut out and placed in a binder where I collect all my favorite recipes. I have made that lasagna recipe many times, including for company. Its combination of both marinara sauce and alfredo sauce gives it a pretty coral color, and it’s loaded with chopped fresh spinach and mushrooms in addition to ground beef and plenty of cheese.

Reggano Oven Ready Lasagna Noodles nutrition information and ingredients. (Click to enlarge.)

Unfortunately, Aldi stopped printing that recipe on the back of the lasagna noodle box a few years ago. You can still view that recipe in our original post reviewing the noodles here. But if you’re not making that specific recipe, it can be a bit intimidating to figure out what to do with the noodles.

The directions currently printed on the side of the box are not very detailed, which leaves many Aldi customers with a lot of questions. (Just look at the comments section on our review of the noodles to see what we mean.)

The directions on the side of the Reggano Oven Ready Lasagna Noodles box. (Click to enlarge.)

The directions on the noodle box state:

1. Add 1/2 cup water or milk for every 5 lasagna noodles used.
2. Cover pan with tin foil.
3. Follow your regular lasagna recipe cooking instructions.
4. Remove tin foil for the last 10 minutes of cook time.

The back of the box also states:

Make the perfect lasagna by layering noodles, ricotta cheese, sauce and your other favorite fillings to make a classic dish that will bring the whole family together to enjoy!

Other basic instructions on the bottom of the back of the box, minus the part about adding water or milk. (Click to enlarge.)

We get a lot of readers here at Aldi Reviewer who aren’t sure whether to add extra liquid, and they’re hesitant to experiment with adding different amounts of water or milk to their usual lasagna recipes. In short, they’re just not sure about trying these Aldi noodles.

Because we get so many readers asking how to make lasagna using these noodles, I decided to follow the box directions myself, using my mom’s informal lasagna recipe she’s used since I was a kid.

My mom has a reputation for making great lasagna, but she’s never used an actual recipe. She simply layers cooked noodles, sauce, ground beef, ricotta cheese, and mozzarella cheese, and she bakes it until it’s done. I still vividly remember my best friend from middle school trying my mom’s lasagna one night and declaring it, “the best lasagna I’ve ever tasted.”

So for this experiment, I assembled all the usual ingredients that go into my mom’s lasagna and I tried making it the Aldi way. It actually turned out great. I’m sharing the recipe here today.

Dinner time.

The Short Version:

Ingredients: 

• 9 Reggano Oven Ready Lasagna Noodles
• 1 pound of ground beef or ground turkey
• A sprinkling of Stonemill Garlic Powder or two cloves of fresh minced garlic
• 1 23.5-ounce jar of Simply Nature Organic Marinara Pasta Sauce
• 1 15-ounce container of Emporium Selection Ricotta Cheese
• Approximately 3 cups of Happy Farms Mozzarella Shredded Cheese (or slightly more if you really like cheese)

Directions: 

1. Brown ground beef or ground turkey in a large skillet. While beef is cooking, sprinkle with garlic powder or minced garlic.
2. Drain any grease from the cooked meat and stir in the jar of marinara sauce.
3. Spread one third of the meat and sauce mixture on the bottom of a lightly greased 9 x 13 inch casserole dish.
4. Top the meat and sauce mixture with 3 uncooked noodles.
5. Spread one third of the ricotta cheese on top of the noodles. Sprinkle approximately 1 cup of mozzarella cheese on top.
6. Repeat layers one time.
7. Put the last three uncooked noodles on top of the lasagna mixture. Top with the remaining sauce, ricotta cheese, and mozzarella cheese.
8. Add just under 1 cup of water all around the edges of the assembled uncooked lasagna. Don’t pour water directly on top; stick to pouring just around the edges of the casserole dish.
9. Cover with aluminum foil and bake at 400 degrees for 1 hour.
10. Remove the foil. Be careful because there will be some steam under the foil. Put the lasagna back in the oven uncovered and bake for another 10 minutes.
11. Let the lasagna stand for about 10-15 minutes before serving.

For step-by-step detailed illustrated directions and more thoughts on the lasagna, read on.

The Long Version:

All of the ingredients I used to make this lasagna were from Aldi except for the ground beef, which I purchased from a farm near me that raises pasture-fed beef and chicken. You can easily purchase ground beef or ground turkey at Aldi to make this an all-Aldi meal.

The primary ingredients for this lasagna are 1 pound of ground beef, 9 noodles from a 12-ounce box of Reggano Oven Ready Lasagna Noodles, some Stonemill Garlic Powder (95 cents at Aldi) or a couple of cloves of fresh minced garlic, one 23.5-ounce jar of Simply Nature Organic Marinara Pasta Sauce, one 15-ounce container of Emporium Selection Ricotta Cheese, and about 3 cups of shredded Happy Farms Mozzarella Cheese. I love fresh garlic but used garlic powder because my local Aldi stores were out of fresh garlic at the time.

Grass-fed locally raised ground beef in my Aldi Awesome Pan.

To start, preheat your oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.

Then, brown the ground beef in a large pan on the stove top. (I used my Crofton Awesome Pan purchased from Aldi as a limited-time special in January of 2022.) Sprinkle on a few generous shakes of garlic powder or add 2 cloves of fresh minced garlic while the beef is cooking.

Cooked beef and garlic with marinara sauce.

Once the beef is fully cooked, turn off the stove and drain any fat from the pan if necessary. (The grass-fed beef I purchase from a farm is so lean I don’t usually need to drain any fat.) Then add the entire jar of marinara pasta sauce and stir to combine the sauce and beef.

Next, spread one third of the meat and sauce mixture in the bottom of a greased 9 x 13 inch casserole dish. Top the meat and sauce with 3 uncooked noodles. Then spread one third of the ricotta cheese on top of the noodles, and top with about 1 cup of shredded mozzarella.

One layer done. Meat and sauce mixture on the bottom, followed by uncooked noodles, topped with ricotta and mozzarella cheeses.

Repeat the layers once more.

To finish assembling the lasagna, I added another layer of each ingredient, but I switched the order of ingredients so the top layer of noodles could better cook under a layer of sauce. For the last layer, start by adding 3 uncooked lasagna noodles. Then top with the remaining meat and sauce mixture, followed by the last of the ricotta cheese and about 1 cup more of shredded mozzarella cheese.

All of the layers completed.

Next, you’re going to do something that might not seem intuitive. You may worry you’re going to mess up the lasagna. Don’t worry. It will all work out in the end.

The lasagna noodle box says to add 1/2 cup of water or milk for every 5 lasagna noodles used in your recipe. I used 9 lasagna noodles, so I added just under 1 cup of water. It’s okay to eyeball it and not have an exact measurement for your water here — just add somewhere above 3/4 of a cup but not quite 1 cup of water. Don’t pour the water directly on top of the lasagna layers. Instead, gently pour it all around the edges of the casserole dish.

Fully assembled uncooked lasagna with just less than 1 cup of water added around the edges of the dish.

The result is a soupy-looking uncooked lasagna, but it will be delicious after it’s baked.

Cover the baking dish with a layer of aluminum foil and bake covered for 1 hour. Then carefully remove the foil covering. Because of the high liquid content in this lasagna, you may have a lot of steam under the foil, so be cautious when taking the foil off so you don’t burn your hands. I had some cheese stick to the foil, but it wasn’t too bad, and using a deeper dish might solve that issue.

My lasagna still looked pretty watery at this point, but I put it back in the oven uncovered for 10 minutes more, and it came out perfect. Let it stand for 10 to 15 minutes before serving.

The finished, baked lasagna!

The noodles were cooked to just the right consistency, and the amount of sauce was spot on. This recipe was a hit with everyone in my household.

Dinner time.

After allowing it to cool for 10-15 minutes after baking, this lasagna was a cinch to cut into squares and serve on plates. It held together well, as shown in the photo above. Serve it alongside some garlic bread and a salad, and you have a restaurant-quality meal.

Homemade lasagna with green beans and cheddar garlic biscuits.

I had my doubts about how well following the lasagna box instructions would work, especially given all the negative or confused comments we get on our original review of the noodles. This method is definitely a keeper, though.

This recipe is also easily customizable. You could use cottage cheese instead of ricotta cheese. You could use Italian sausage instead of ground beef. You can also add additional seasonings such as parsley or an Italian herb mix. You could even sneak a few chopped veggies into this, including diced mushrooms or fresh spinach. It’s pretty versatile.

I will probably make homemade lasagna more often now that I know how easy it is to make with these noodles and a few other simple ingredients.

Have you used Aldi Reggano Oven Ready Lasagna Noodles? If you tried the recipe here, or if you have another favorite way to prepare these noodles, let us know in the comments below.