I’ve had a craving for lasagna. It’s been bugging me for weeks. With Brad and I not eating any form of gluten, traditional noodles were out. Luckily, I found Cappello’s lasagna noodles at Natural Grocers.

I’ve said it before, but these noodles are game-changing. We’ve had several dishes with the Cappello’s noodles lately, but this one takes the proverbial cake. I’ll go ahead and be honest. This recipe takes a lot of steps. Mostly, because I made everything from scratch. You don’t have to do that, but it sure does make it extra special.

I saved this recipe creation for the weekend so I had plenty of time to let the sauce simmer. I promise you it is worth it. So let’s get started with the first part, which is mixing up your own spicy Italian sausage.

For the Homemade Spicy Italian Sausage

What you need:

• 1 lb. ground pork
• 1 Tablespoon Italian Seasoning
• 1 teaspoon fennel seeds
• 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes (less if you don’t like it spicy)
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder

Combine all ingredients. You can use this to make meatballs, patties or whatever. For this dish, I cooked it like ground beef.

For the Marinara Sauce

What you need:

• 2 15-ounce cans tomato sauce
• 1 15-ounce can diced tomatoes
• 1 Tablespoon Italian Seasoning
• 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes (less if you don’t like it spicy)
• 1/2 onion, diced
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• Salt, to taste

Combine all ingredients and bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer and cook for 10 minutes, while you sauté the sausage mixture with one diced onion.

Once the sausage and onion mixture is cooked, add it to the marinara sauce to create a homemade meat sauce.

Simmer the sauce for around an hour so the flavors can meld together. This will give you time to prep the Spinach Ricotta mixture for the lasagna.

For the Spinach Ricotta mixture

What you need:

• 1 container for whole milk Ricotta
• 1 package frozen spinach, thawed and drained
• Salt, to taste

First, remove all the water from the spinach. I lined a bowl with several layers of paper towels, but you could also use a dish towel, to soak up water. Squeeze the spinach in the paper towel until all water is removed. Add the spinach to the ricotta cheese, and season with salt.

Assemble the lasagna.

Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees.

Start with a little olive oil and sauce in the bottom of the baking dish. Add a layer of noodles, and then add a layer of spinach ricotta mixture. Continue the layers until you run out of ingredients. Top with Parmesan cheese.

Bake for 20 minutes covered with aluminum foil. Remove the foil and bake for an additional 20 minutes.

Once you take it out of the oven, let it cool for 15 minutes. I know it’s hard, but it makes it easier to cut. Plus, you won’t burn your mouth so you can really enjoy it.

But would you look at those layers. Oh. My. Goodness. It was the best lasagna I’ve ever made. Pretty spicy, but the ricotta made it creamy and helped cut the heat.

We have a good amount of leftovers, but it won’t make it long. We both had heaping plates, and Brad even talked about going back for more. He even requested this dish for his birthday supper next weekend. So looks like I will be making it again soon.