Four-Cheese Lasagna With Fresh Pasta

This is not your Aunt Mary’s lasagna—or one you’ve likely encountered from any family member! There’s no tomato sauce and no meat. Just fresh pasta sheets layered with four different kinds of delicious cheese.

This lasagna is golden with crispy-chewy edges on top and creamy insides in the middle. This makes a heavenly and decadent addition to a holiday table or midwinter feast.

I have been wanting to explore making lasagna with fresh pasta sheets for a while. I like the idea of using the pasta sheets in a simple way for a weeknight dinner instead of going full monty with the sauce and meat of traditional lasagna.

You can make your own pasta, of course, or look for fresh sheets in the refrigerator section at gourmet grocery stores like Whole Foods. (If you have trouble finding fresh pasta, or don't want to bother, no-boil dry lasagna noodles are a fine substitute! Instructions for that variation are below)

The filling for this lasagna takes about 5 minutes to prepare, and the noodles take no more time than that to boil. Yes, you'll still need to cook the pasta, even when using fresh sheets or no-boil dry noodles – there's no escaping this step, but at least it's quick!

Rather than assembling the lasagna in layers, as is traditional, I took a more freeform approach with this recipe. You fold a few spoonfuls of filling between each sheet of pasta and then arrange the folded pockets randomly in the pan. Then the whole dish is baked until the cheese is bubbly and the edges of the pasta are crispy.

The lasagna can be assembled in a skillet or a baking dish. You could make half a recipe or double the recipe as needed, depending on how many people you want to feed. The filling will also keep for a couple of days in the fridge if you want to make it ahead and assemble to order.

I still had some basil in my garden when I made this earlier in the fall, and I'm happy to report that it made a stellar addition to the melty chunks of fresh mozzarella and fontina in the finished dish. But any fresh herb you can get your hands on would be delicious.

I also thought about topping the lasagna with sautéed mushrooms, and I may still do that at some point if I want to serve this as a more complete meal on its own. I also think some roasted delicata squash would work well, or asparagus in the spring, or even ripe tomatoes in the summer.