Cook the pasta
Put a pot of water on the stove just after you add the tomatoes to the meat sauce. Bring it to a boil and cook the noodles. In general, I find that the times listed on the back of the box are a bit long, since you’ll need to undercook your noodles significantly. Nine minutes or so generally does the trick. Once the pasta’s done, drain it in a colander and rinse in cool water. If you’re not quite ready at this point to begin building your lasagna, toss the noodles with a little bit of olive oil to prevent them from sticking together.

Make the béchamel
About halfway through the meat sauce cooking time, get started on the béchamel.

Build it baby!
Spread a thin layer of the meat sauce on the bottom of a 9"x12" baking pan. Top with three sheets of noodles. Slop on another layer of meat sauce, then drizzle with the bechamel sauce (don’t worry about covering the tomato sauce completely). Continue layering until you’ve used up all the pasta. Top the final noodle layer with béchamel, mozzarella and parmegiano. Bake in an oven at 400F for 30-40 minutes, or until the top of the lasagna is golden brown and bubbly. Remove the lasagna from the oven and let it cool for 10 minutes (important! this’ll help the dish firm up) before serving. Bon appetito!

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