Home/Made Mushroom Lasagna

Home/Made Mushroom Lasagna
Marcus Nilsson for The New York Times. Food stylist: Jamie Kimm. Prop stylist: Angharad Bailey.
Total Time
2 hours
Rating
4(2,091)
Notes
Read community notes

Monica Byrne, with her partner, Leisah Swenson, runs a tiny restaurant in Red Hook, Brooklyn, called Home/Made. A plurality of words that appear on the Home/Made menu: “cheese,” “smoked,” “bacon,” “caramelized.” Three of those four appear in Byrne’s lasagna, leaving out only bacon, which would be a fine addition. She layers smoked mozzarella over a painting of rich, garlicky béchamel and sheets of pasta, then radicchio roasted into sweetness and tossed in sauce. Sautéed mushrooms add heft and loamy funkiness, and a mixture of Fontina and Gruyère add zing. —Sam Sifton

Featured in: Gooey Wild-Mushroom Lasagna

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Ingredients

Yield:6 to 8 servings
  • ½cup extra-virgin olive oil or herb oil
  • 6large shallots, peeled and minced
  • pounds mushrooms, wild or best available oyster, shiitake, cremini, trimmed and sliced
  • 1cup dry white wine
  • 1softball-size head of radicchio, halved, cored and cut into ½-inch slices
  • Kosher salt
  • freshly ground black pepper
  • 4tablespoons unsalted butter, or herb oil
  • 3large cloves garlic, peeled and minced
  • 4tablespoons flour, ideally instant or all-purpose
  • 3cups whole milk
  • ½teaspoon grated nutmeg
  • 1cup Gruyère cheese, grated
  • 1cup Fontina cheese, grated
  • 2tablespoons best-quality truffle oil (optional)
  • 29-ounce boxes of no-boil lasagna sheets
  • 1baseball-size ball of smoked mozzarella, sliced
  • 1cup fresh Parmesan, grated
Ingredient Substitution Guide
Nutritional analysis per serving (8 servings)

863 calories; 47 grams fat; 15 grams saturated fat; 0 grams trans fat; 22 grams monounsaturated fat; 8 grams polyunsaturated fat; 73 grams carbohydrates; 5 grams dietary fiber; 13 grams sugars; 35 grams protein; 1027 milligrams sodium

Note: The information shown is Edamam’s estimate based on available ingredients and preparation. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.

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Preparation

  1. Step 1

    Preheat oven to 350. Place a large sauté pan over medium-high heat and add ¼ cup of the olive oil or herb oil. When it begins to shimmer, add half of the shallots and cook, stirring occasionally, until translucent. Add mushrooms and toss to coat, then cook until they begin to color but are still plump, approximately 12 to 15 minutes. Add white wine to deglaze pan and allow to cook down into a syrup, approximately 5 to 7 minutes. Put the mushrooms into a large bowl and reserve.

  2. Step 2

    Meanwhile, in another bowl, toss the radicchio with ¼ cup olive oil or herb oil and season with salt and pepper. Spread the strips out onto a baking pan and place in the oven until the strips are lightly browned around the edges, approximately 15 minutes. Combine with mushrooms and reserve.

  3. Step 3

    Make the béchamel. Place a saucepan over medium heat and melt the butter. When it foams, add the rest of the shallots and cook until they begin to turn translucent. Add the garlic and stir to combine, then cook until the garlic has started to soften. Sprinkle flour over the top and stir to combine, then cook gently until the mixture has turned light brown and gives off a nutty scent, approximately 10 minutes. Add milk to the mixture, whisking all the while, until the sauce is thick and creamy. Add the nutmeg and ¼ cup of grated Gruyère and ¼ cup of grated Fontina, then stir to combine. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

  4. Step 4

    Reserve a cup of béchamel. Pour the rest over the mixture of mushrooms and radicchio, and stir to combine. Add truffle oil, if using.

  5. Step 5

    Assemble lasagna. Spread plain béchamel across the bottom of a 9- by-13-inch baking pan. Place a layer of lasagna sheets across the sauce, being careful not to overlap. Spread a generous layer of mushroom mixture on top of the pasta, and follow with some grated Fontina and Gruyère. Put another layer of pasta above the cheese, and top with smoked mozzarella. Repeat until the pasta is gone and the pan is full. Top with remaining cheeses and a generous amount of grated Parmesan. Cover with a buttered sheet of aluminum foil and place in the oven for 45 minutes. Remove foil and cook until top is golden and bubbling.

Ratings

4 out of 5
2,091 user ratings
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Private Notes

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Cooking Notes

This is a massively expensive recipe, but you can substitute white or brown button mushrooms for the fancy ones, curly endive for the radicchio, and whatever good melting cheeses are reasonably priced in your area (and skip the truffle oil, of course) to make it a lot more reasonable. And it will still taste lovely!

Skip the "softball/baseball" thing and list the ingredients by weight— just like the mushrooms.

Absolute ridiculous. Here in Frisco I spent almost $50 at Whole Foods (chanterelles!) and it took me almost three hours to cook, but the result was EPIC. Cheesy goodness, yes, but with a deep, rich umami flavor like nothing you've tasted. One of the most distinctive, best pasta dishes I've ever made, thank you.

One pan will feed 10 people, it's so rich. Let it sit for 20 minutes, the mushroom flavor will really improve. Use real lasagne noodles, and serve with a crisp salad!

Here's that recipe for herb oil! We'll add a link to it in the recipe. http://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1013947-herb-oil

David, those of us who don't have the proper scales very much appreciate the use of "volume" in the recipes...how about we compromise and say "Please list cheeses [or whatever] by weight as well as volume"? Sound ok? And maybe it's a bit less cranky than your all-caps request?...it's a lovely recipe site here, not a battle zone...peace and good food for all...

After making this tonight for dinner, I think I would skip the bechamel altogether and substitute heavy cream. I would add the cream to the cooked mushrooms and cook down to thicken the cream, adding the cheeses to the mushroom cream. I found the dish, as it was too rich.

Very good recipe. I would add fresh herbs -either thyme or tarragon to the mushroom and parsley to the béchamel.

This is rich, but quite delicious. Would recommend cutting down on the butter and adding herbs, more mushrooms, and maybe some other vegetable. Perhaps two radicchios and another 1/2 pound or so of mushrooms would do the trick. Some roasted broccoli rabe could be interesting.

I finally devoted a Sunday afternoon to making this recipe.
I agree with the others--it turned out to be a gloppy, way-too-rich mess. Should I ever try it again, I would eliminate the mozzarella, cut down on the butter in the bechamel and not roast the radicchio in oil before assembling, since that wiped out the crisp "bite" this dish needs. It also cried out for some fresh herbs and crunchy pancetta.

I read the comments and thought that the recipe sounded pretty rich so I put in about 1.5 radicchio, an extra half pound of mushrooms and I made sure I put in the right amount of pasta. Oddly, I thought the end result was not rich and actually a bit too pasta-y. And we don't really like rich food much. So my recommendation is to go with the recipe or even short the pasta a bit. It was really good in the bites that had a lot of the mushroom mixture.

My relatives inhale this recipe every Christmas Day. When the NYTimes published this recipe in 2011, there was an herb oil recipe included, but it seems to have disapeared. The herb oil is crucial to making this lasagna so fabulous. I agree with the other comments about reducing the amount of oil in the recipe. Otherwise, it's well worth the two hours of preparation time.

Rich with cheese, but the radicchio balances it. Prep takes some effort. This would be a fun project for a couple of friends to cook together. I used less than one box of lasagna noodles and just a pinch of nutmeg.

Made this last night w/ a friend. It was delicious, but rich, rich, rich. Took us nearly 3 hours including baking time. Part of that was rolling out fresh pasta, but that part well worth it. Next time I'll cut back on the oil, reduce # of shallots, go for the most assertive-tasting mushrooms possible, and will start earlier....

Could you prep this in advance, refrigerate overnight and then finish baking the next day? Having some people over for din on Monday. Would love to prep on Sunday when I have the time, then have ready to finish after work on Monday. Would that work?

Too rich. The leftovers haunted us for days.

Didn’t use radicchio and substituted baby spinach and arugula mix. Worked great but do whole container not half.

I like the soft ball sizes, easier for me. What has battle ground got to do with it.

Can you cook and freeze ahead?

This lasagne was a big hit in this house, but next time I would use probably half the amount of oil. It was swimming in oil when it came out of the oven. I needed to pour some of it off. That said, I also added some herbs de provence and sage just because, and did use the truffle oil which I almost never use. It was a very good addition, but probably contributed to the oiliness. All-in-all, it was very good and will be made again...when I have a spare three hours. Well worth it though.

Too mushroom heavy, not enough of the delicious goopy cheesiness that makes lasagna great. While also costing insane amounts of money.

I accidentally sautéed all the onions instead of just half and as a result this dish was the lasagna version of French onion soup. Onion was all I could taste. So disapppointing. I also recommend finding a way to get in all or most of the pasta. I only used about half and felt it would have benefited from more - a little too gooey.

I tried to make this exactly according to recipe but was not happy with the end result. Maybe my shallots were too big? It’s all I could taste. Also feel like I should have squeezed in another layer of pasta somehow. Meh.

Save your time and avoid this recipe! It just didn’t work for me. The noodles were dry. I feel like there was a need of acid to balance the creaminess and bitterness of rest of the dish. I think I liked the mushroom part of the dish.

It is in the oven. This was a lot of work. Used Ashbrook Reading cheese as sub for Fontina. Used red cabbage as sub for radicchio cause everywhere was out of radicchio. Came up short on the shroom mix so I would double amount next time. I did not add extra salt cause i was worried about the saltiness with all the cheeses. Grating cheese was a lot of work. Also Costco cheese (gruyere and parmessan) at least made it a little less expensive.

Honestly mediocre recipe. Too much cheese, not enough mushrooms, and mixing in the bechamel is more of a hindrance than anything. Top is burnt from lack of sauce (pasta then only cheese? Where will the hydration come from?).

I wish I'd read the notes first. Delicious, but a bit of a gut bomb. Every bite left a pool of oil behind from the pressure of the fork and knife. I don't think 1/2 cup of oil is necessary for the veg - you could get away with less than half that. Cut the butter as well. I'd do it again, but with less oil and butter. Also, to whomever said they didn't have a kitchen scale - I'm shocked at how you get by without one!

I've made this numerous times since publication. Followed recipe the first time and made mods thereafter based on what was available. I've subbed lacinato (braised in the mushroom pan) for radicchio; used just cremini and shitaake mushrooms with bechamel. More mozzarella (smoked and regular) and omitted gruyere. Recently I sauteed sliced portabellas and finished them with smoked paprika. I prefer fresh lasagne sheets to the no-bake.

I purchased mushrooms from my local farmer's market and the dish turned out amazing. It takes some time and quite a bit of step but it's well worth it.

As Analisa says, adhering to the ingredient list 100% is very expensive which is why I used button mushrooms, and raclette cheese instead of Fontina and Gruyère. It was delicious! One final note, though: I don't live in the US and was rather confused when I used only half of a standard 500g packet of lasagne plates, so only half of the amount in the recipe. Is my generous more generous than Monica's, or are my lasagna plates thinner or something?

We love this dish though it's quite a production and not the cheapest to make, as others note. I usually skip the fontina and just do the Gruyere and smoked mozzarella. I also add a little dried porcini to the mushroom mix and some of the soaking liquid when adding the wine. I also save dirty dishes by making the bechamel in the same pan i cook the mushrooms. It's quite rich and decadent--serve with a crisp salad!

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Credits

Adapted from Monica Byrne, Home/Made, Brooklyn

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