My Lazy Pasta Bake Is Just as Good as Lasagna (And It’s Way Easier)

This recipe was inspired by a thought exercise: What is the absolute laziest, easiest way to make something that resembles a lasagna? I don’t want to boil noodles, make a sauce, brown the meat, or do any advance prep. And I surely don’t want to layer any of the ingredients.

What resulted was this delicious, dead-easy, lasagna-adjacent pasta bake. It has all of the flavors of a lasagna with a whole lot less work. Melty pockets of three-cheese mixture and golden brown mini meatballs top a baking dish full of saucy noodles, and the only prep you’ll do is pouring, stirring, dolloping, and sprinkling. Kids can easily get in on this one too.  

Any Noodle Can Be a No-Boil Noodle

No-boil lasagna noodles have been around since I was little, and they really do streamline the process of making lasagna. As it turns out, pretty much any noodle can be “no-boil” if you don’t boil it! Just make sure to use a fairly sturdy, short shape with a cooking time of anywhere from eight to 12 minutes.

This way, the noodles will withstand the long oven cooking time and still retain their shape. More delicate noodles may end up too mushy. I like to use a ruffly pasta shape to keep that classic lasagna vibe. Reginetti, radiatore, campanelle, and gigli are all good options.

Picking a Pasta Sauce

Since I’m not making the sauce from scratch, I use the highest quality store-bought marinara I can find. Costco sells 28-ounce jars of Rao’s in two packs, and I always have those in my pantry. You can also use any 24-ounce jar from the supermarket.

Just add an extra half cup of water to the recipe to make up the volume. And maybe add a tablespoon or two of olive oil if your pasta sauce doesn’t have much in it already—it’ll add to the richness of the finished dish. Rao’s already has a lot of oil, so I don’t add any extra.

My Favorite Meatballs and Cheese

For the meat portion of this lasagna, I used frozen mini meatballs, which cook quickly on top of the pasta bake once the pasta’s cooked through. My favorites are Trader Joe’s Party Size Mini Meatballs and Earth’s Best Mini Beef Meatballs. If you can only find regular-sized meatballs at the grocery store, let them thaw overnight in the fridge, then cut them in half before using.

There’s no real shortcut for the three-cheese mixture, but it’s easy enough to stir up the ricotta, mozzarella, parmesan, and seasonings while the pasta cooks. If you really wanted, you could just top your pasta bake with shredded mozzarella and call it a day, but I think that gooey, herby, ricotta-based mix is what really gives this bake its lasagna character.

Another benefit of this recipe over a traditional lasagna is that it’s toddler-friendly. My three-year-old easily forked up the noodles (and eventually devolved into using her hands, but that’s another story), and she loved the cute, one-bite mini meatballs. She was also happy to eat the leftovers, which are easily reheated in the microwave. What a win for everybody!