Easy weeknight meals that can be cooked effortlessly are my kind of meals. This Stovetop Lasagna recipe takes the all the classic lasagna flavours that you love and pulls them together in just a fraction of the time – in just one skillet!
Quick & Easy Stovetop Lasagna
As a mom with three active kids, I rely on quick meals to get us through the week. When they were younger, it was because of the dreaded “witching hour” when the kids were tiny and cranky and in need of attention. Now that I have teenagers, it’s all homework help and hungry bellies from after school activities.
This stovetop lasagna has been a staple in our house because it’s something that comes together easily in one pan, and it fills everyone up.
Stovetop Lasagna Ingredients
If you want to try this quick dinner idea tonight you’ll just need a few basic ingredients to get started.
- Coconut oil
- Sausage
- Minced garlic
- Tomato sauce
- Oregano
- Basil
- Red pepper flakes
- Bowtie pasta
- Salt
- Mozzarella cheese
- Parmesan cheese
- Ricotta cheese
Simple right? Now wait until you see how easy this recipe is to make
How to Make Lasagna on the Stove
I’m going to tell you how to make this recipe step-by-step but first, check out this quick video to see how the recipe is made in just three minutes.
- Brown the meat
In a large skillet cook the sausage in coconut oil until browned. Add the minced garlic until cooked through. - Stir in the sauce
Add the tomato sauce and seasonings and mix to combine. - Cook the pasta
In the same pan, add 2 cups of water and pasta to the skillet, bringing the wanter to a boil. When the liquid is boiling, reduce heat to a simmer and cover. Cooking the pasta until tender - Remove from heat
When the pasta is tender, removed from heat, stirring in the Mozzarella until combined. Top with small mounds of ricotta and Parmesan, cover and wait until cheese has melted - Serve
By this time, you kitchen will smell amazing – and your family will be begging you to hand them a heaping bowl of stovetop lasagna!
Gluten-Free Stovetop Lasagna
This quick weeknight meal can easily be made gluten-free. Simply swap the traditional bowtie noodles for your favorite gluten-free pasta and follow the same cooking instructions.
Cook time for the pasta may vary slightly if you are using gluten-free pasta so be sure to check the box and adjust the time as needed.
Easy Weeknight Meals
30 minute meals like this stovetop lasagna or my Spaghetti Carbonara Recipe make weeknights easier and I usually save these recipes for our busiest days.
Being able to cook homemade meals every day while working full time can be tough to do. I know many of you struggle with that as well. The ability to pull it off really depends on our commitment to plan ahead. I’ve been creating weekly meal plans on MOMables.com for over a decade now and many busy families use the plans as a way to get healthy meals on the table every night.
The meal prep sheet included each week helps save you (and me!) hours in the kitchen. Each week also comes with it’s own pre-made shopping list, so all you have to do is walk into the kitchen and follow the recipes. Try a sample week of the plan below.
Classic Weekly Meal Plan
Eat delicious real food family meals with a simple plan. Recipes, meal prep, and done-for-you shopping list inside.
Where do you find your inspiration for your weeknight meals? Do you have any favorite family meals you can whip up in a hurry?
PrintStovetop Lasagna – Quick Weeknight Meal
This stovetop lasagna recipe is a quick weeknight meal with all the classic flavors at a fraction of the time. 30 minute meal anyone?
- Yield: 6 servings
- Category: dinner
- Method: stovetop
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon coconut oil*
- 1 pound Italian sausage, removed from casings
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- 24 ounces tomato sauce (omit seasonings below if sauce is seasoned)
- 1 ½ teaspoons oregano
- 1 ½ teaspoons basil
- ½ teaspoon red pepper flakes
- 8 ounces farfalle pasta (bowties)*
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
- ¼ cup Parmesan cheese (more for serving)
- 1 cup ricotta cheese
Instructions
- In a large (5 quart/ 12 inch) skillet over medium-high heat, add coconut oil and Italian sausage. Cook until sausage is nearly browned and cooked through, then add minced garlic. Finish cooking the sausage with the garlic.
- Stir in tomato sauce and seasonings (if sauce isn’t seasoned) to the cooked sausage. Add in 2 cups of water and pasta to the skillet and bring to a boil. Once it’s boiling, reduce heat to a simmer and cover. Cook until pasta is tender, about 12 additional minutes (this will vary depending on the pasta you use).
- When pasta is cooked, remove from heat. Stir in mozzarella and combine. Top with small mounds of ricotta cheese and Parmesan, cover and wait a couple of minutes for ricotta to heat and melt in.
- Serve immediately with additional Parmesan cheese if desired.
Notes
- I personally use coconut oil but you can use your favorite cooking oil.
- This recipe doesn’t work well with spaghetti or angel hair pasta.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 bowl
- Calories: 551
- Sugar: 8.2g
- Sodium: 721mg
- Fat: 23.1g
- Saturated Fat: 12.2g
- Carbohydrates: 55.2g
- Fiber: 5.1g
- Protein: 31.4g
- Cholesterol: 61.8mg
Keywords: stovetop lasagna, stove-top lasagna, quick weeknight meals
christina h
this looks sooooo delicious!!! i wish i could eat it. upon this post, an idea popped into my little wandering mind. i’ve recently discovered i’m severely sensitive to night shades. would you perhaps ever be inclined to create some nightshade-free recipes? or some recipes that you already have made now, put a “night-shade free” tag in?? thanks for all the great, detailed recipes!
★★★★★
Wendy
I learned to cook from my mom, grandmas, and doing a lot of experimenting on my own. I get inspiration from various places, this site, cookbooks I’ve come across, cookbooks that have been passed down. Our eating habits have changed and evolved over the years. At the moment our go to recipe is a Mexican hamburger/ pasta hotdish. The kids love it and it is quick to make. We also like to do chicken stir fry with whatever veggies we have on hand. It’s a great, fun way to get the kids to eat their veggies.
Tonya
I learned to cook at a young age…my mom would have me start things before she would get home from work so slowly I began to learn how to cook and over the years have learned many things from both parents to this day! I love to make people happy through cooking and baking!
Kelli
Most of my inspiration comes from blogs and pinterest!
★★★★
Stephanie
I learned to cook from my mother (who is German and cooked everything from scratch – something I still can’t do!)
My kids are my inspiration now that they are obsessed with all those competitive cooking shows and are constantly asking “what’s for dinner” (and of course rating me… gah! the pressure! 🙂
Family meals: roasted salmon broccoli and rice, shrimp and pasta, and of course tacos
Terri
Thank you for the delicious recipe!
I learned to cook from my mother. I still remember the first dish I got to try on my own – pancakes 🙂
Stephanie
I’m still learning! My way is definitely by trial and error and my family are the guinea pigs. I don’t know why but I have a hard time following recipes. I tend to think, “this would be good with some cumin, even though it’s not on the list,” and just start adding things. Not all meals are winners, but we make it work!
Laura Fuentes
Not all meals are winners for me either Stephanie… especially when I “test” ingredients. my kids can nearly always feel when it’s a recipe I made on a whim. ha!
Jaclyn Quade
I taught myself to cook by trial and error. I am always looking at websites magazine’s and cookbooks for new recipes. My go to meal is spaghetti because it is super easy!
Melissa H
I learned to cook from my mother in law. When my husband and I were first married I couldn’t boil water, so once a week my mother in law would have me over and we would cook a meal together. It was amazing because I learned to cook meals that my husband loved and I also got hands on experience from a great cook!
★★★
Jolene
I learned to cook mostly by having countless generations of cooks before me and also my Mom taught me some smart things. Our go to meal is fried potatoes, cottage cheese, and green onions. Sometimes we’ll put some canned meat in a pan and fry it to go with our potatoes. YUM!!!
Heidi J
Our favorite go-to meal is burritos. Some sort of seasoned meat, plus beans, cheese, veggies, hopefully avocado for me, or whatever is in the fridge. It’s flexible enough to accommodate different tastes, but easy to make sure we include some veggies. (I love sauteed squash, with black beans and mozzarella.)
Katie
I am not a good cook and really don’t like to cook. However, I have 3 precious little boys (5, 4 and 1) and a hungry husband so I attempt to cook delicious meals. Some turn out ok and others are not good at all. I judge if it’s a good meal by the amount of hot sauce my husband puts on his food. If it’s a little amount then he likes it but if it’s a lot then it’s not good and I usually don’t make that one again. Then my parents and a friend told me about momables. You are amazing and helped changed my outlook in the kitchen. I am now learning about healthier ways to feed my family and I’m starting to enjoy it more. Thanks Laura!!!
I leaned to cook from my mom. She Doesn’t really like to cook but she always had a hot meal for us and she tried really hard.
Beth
While growing up on canned, boxed and frozen foods, I learned cooking by osmosis during the 70s and 80s by watching PBS! We didn’t have cable, and the Food Network didn’t exist yet, so my teachers were Julia Child, who taught me not to take cooking so seriously and to enjoy my time in the kitchen, and Martin Yan (“If Yan can cook, so can YOU!”) who taught me everything I know about chopping, dicing and slicing. I learned to be adventurous with my seasonings with The Cajun Cook and Paul Prudhomme, and I learned tools and technique from the Frugal Gourmet. I learned all about Italian food from Lidia Bastianich and Mary Ann Esposito. And I still have a huge chef-crush on Ming Tsai, who taught me how to fuse cultures and flavors in a single recipe.
Once I was out of college, I joined a cookbook club and read cookbooks like they were novels, rarely cooking the recipes, but remembering the tastes, techniques and ideas I found interesting. Somehow, all of the information in my head managed to gel and I was able to improvise in the kitchen and create dishes that my husband and I thrived on in our first years of marriage.
My inspiration is my huge appetite, lol! 🙂 I love food – it’s just so delicious! So whatever my taste buds are craving (coupled with whatever is on sale at the store or leftover in the fridge) points me in the direction of what’s for dinner.
Our quick go-to dinner (which we had tonight!) was very similar to yours! But with four kids and a husband who all have issues (allergies, aversions, intolerances, we’ve got them all) I set up a pasta bar and let everyone build their own perfect dinner. Farfalle with olive oil, salt and pepper in one bowl, crumbled Italian turkey sausage in another, steamed broccoli on the side, our favorite natural jarred tomato sauce in one gravy boat and a quick homemade alfredo in another. Everyone left the table happy! I do the same thing with asian flavors; plain noodles, stir fried or steamed veggies, and diced leftover meat with two or three simple sauces on the side. Each person builds what they like and I can eat dinner with no one crying – everyone wins!
★★★★★
Angela
I learned to cook somehow – I do not really know. I know I had free-reign of the kitchen since I was old enough to stand in a chair to reach the top of the stove. My mother worked & then worked on the farm in the evenings. She also had no real interest in cooking other than out of necessity. So, I just cooked. I cooked a lot of southern Appalachian food that my family grew & killed & put up. Once I moved away, I learned to cook food to enhance the food’s natural flavor – and with a lot less frying & breading.
Natalia Berardo
I find inspiration everyday. Like Laura, I am always looking for new recipes for my family. I can not always please 5 people but I try. Today I was chatting with a friend and she told me about her favorite Moroccan chicken. And even more recently I found inspiration on this email! Thanks!!!
★★★★