White Lasagna with Butternut Squash and Sweet Italian Chicken Sausage

Normally I'd say lasagna isn't the best when cooking for a small number. But, lasagna is only as big as the baking dish you put it in so it is pretty easy to shrink it down if need be. My friend Sara was coming over for dinner and then we were going to see Marley & Me, so I needed a dish I could make the night before and this lasagna was what I chose.

This recipe was inspired from a skillet lasagna in the Williams Sonoma catalog, but I think my version is easier because you can make it ahead, refrigerate or freeze, and then bake the day you want to serve it. It's layers of thinly sliced butternut squash, sweet Italian chicken sausage, and cheeses (Parmesan, Asiago, and Fontina) all doused in a crème fraîche béchamel.

The first thing you want to do is get all of the components ready. I started by preparing the chicken sausage. I purchased 2 links of sweet Italian chicken sausage that added up to about a half a pound, not even. I split them open and scooped out the insides into a pan that already had one small finely chopped onion cooking away. To that, I added about a tablespoon of Italian seasonings and a little bit of olive oil. I used a wooden spoon to break the sausage into tiny ground bits- you don't want really big chunky pieces in this lasagna.Meanwhile, I sliced the butternut squash. I bought a half a butternut squash that was already peeled. I picked one that had a big neck, as the neck piece was what I wanted to use so they'd all be around the same size after being slice. You could certainly buy a whole squash, halve it, and peel it yourself, but I am lazy. Plus, I didn't want a lot of leftover squash.Next I made the béchamel. This is really just a white sauce but I prefer the sound of the word béchamel roll off my tongue. Sounds classier. A white sauce sounds like something I'd use in tuna casserole (which I am not against and actually that sounds quite appealing right now, but I'm just saying). To make this creamy sauce, I used 2 tablespoons of butter melted into 3 tablespoons of flour. Whisk the flour and butter together, once combined thoroughly start adding milk in half cup portions while whisking. You want to add a total of 2 cups of skim milk (the proper technique requires whole milk or maybe even cream, but no, that's not what I did). Keep whisking until it is creamy but not really boiling. Then, remove from heat and add about 4 oz of crème fraîche. Just drop it in, and whisk some more until it is combined. This adds a nice creamy flavor to the white sauce.Last, cook your noodles. I used fresh pasta sheets. Like I have mentioned, I shop at Whole Foods and though expensive, it has all kind of cool things like pasta sheets that you just have to try. Make sure when cooking the pasta you oil the water. This way they won't stick together when you drain them. (Believe me, that's annoying).

Now that you have all of the ingredients prepped, you just need to layer it up. First, pour a bit of the sauce in the bottom of the baking dish. Then, put one sheet of cooked pasta down (or two or three is you are using traditional dried noodles). On top of the pasta, create a layer of the thinly sliced butternut squash. If you slice it thin enough, you don't need to cook it beforehand. If you are worried, you can sauté the slices in a bit of oil in a pan to cook them a teeny bit but it shouldn't be necessary. Next, distribute the cooked sausage and onion mixture throughout the layer. Sprinkle on your shredded cheese of choice, pour on more béchamel and again with the pasta layer. Repeat until you have a full lasagna. Make sure to end with one layer of pasta, the béchamel, and shredded cheese.You can cover this with saran wrap and aluminum foil and freeze it or refrigerate it overnight to be baked the next day or beyond. Because mine was small, I only needed to bake it for about 35 minutes at 350 degrees, but depending on the size of your lasagna you might need an hour to cook it through. It should be bubbly and brown on top.Cut it into squares and serve it to a friend. To make use of the leftovers, wait until it has cooled and solidified before cutting it into individual servings to either be frozen for a later date or packed up for tomorrow's lunch.

[A couple people have mentioned to me that those lasagna noodles that don't require precooking would be a quick and easier way to master this dish. I'd have to agree-- if you are looking for something quick and easy without sacrificing taste, definitely go that route instead of doing what I did- wrestling entire sheets of cooked pasta out of the water as they stuck to each other (I lost a few pieces of pasta to my kitchen floor, I won't deny it). On the note that some people like to make things easier, I wondered if there are people out there who want to make recipes more difficult. If you want to create MORE work for yourself on this recipe, then you can actually take fresh pasta sheets and run them through a pasta roller to get them paper thin or make your own pasta and roll your own sheets super thin. Since those sheets only take seconds to cook in boiling water, you also don't need to pre-boil them as long as you use a little extra bechamel.]