Broken Lasagna with Mala Meat Sauce
Servings: 4 servings
Calories: 798kcal
A fun Asian fusion twist! Broken lasagna tossed in a spicy, numbing Sichuan mala meat sauce—easy, bold, and comforting in under an hour.
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Ingredients
- 360 g dried lasagna sheet not the oven-ready type
Mala meat sauce:
- 2 Tbsp cooking oil
- 1 large onion diced
- 3 cloves garlic
- 1 star anise
- 1 ½ tsp Sichuan peppercorns crushed with a heavy object, more if you like it more numbing
- 20 g fresh ginger grated
- 500 g ground pork preferably with some fat
- 2 Tbsp shaoxing wine
- 5 Tbsp dou ban jiang
- 1 bay leaves
- 2 Tbsp soy sauce or more to taste
- 240 g chicken stock or use water
To thicken the sauce
- 1 Tbsp cornstarch
- 3 Tbsp water
Garnish:
- 2 stalks green onion finely chopped
Instructions
Prepare the meat sauce:
- Preheat a large pan/skillet with oil over medium heat. Add onion, garlic, ginger, sichuan peppercorns, and star anise and saute for about 3 minutes until fragrant.
- Add dou ban jiang and stir fry for another minute
- Add the pork, breaking chunks of meat with your spatula. Cook for about 5 minutes, or until the meat is lightly browned on some spots
- Add the wine and cook for about a minute and then add soy sauce, bay leaves and the chicken stock (or water). Stir to combine everything. Make sure the dou ban jiang is evenly mixed into the sauce.
- Cover with a lid and lower the heat to medium-low and let it simmer for about 15-20 minutes or until the pork is tender.
- Prepare the corn starch slurry by combining corn starch with water. Stir this into the meat sauce and keep stirring until the mixture is thickened. Cover and remove the heat while you cook pasta
- Add the chopped green onion and give it a final stir to combine everything
Cook the broken lasagna:
- Bring a medium-pot of salted water to a boil. Break the dried lasagna noodles into 3-4 pieces (about 2-inches, don't have to be exact) for each sheets. They don't have to be a perfect shape.
- Add the broken lasagna pieces into the boiling water and cook until al-dente, about 9 minutes.
- Before you drain off the boiling liquid, reserve about 2 cups. You won't need all of them, but it is used to loosen the sauce if it gets too thick. If you want it saucier, splash a bit more of the reserved liquid. Drain off the rest of the liquid. DO NOT rinse the cooked pasta
Put everything together:
- If the sauce gets too thick, you can splash a tablespoon or two of the reserved pasta water and stir again to loosen it up a bit. Have a taste and adjust until you are happy with the taste.
- Divide the cooked pasta into serving plates. Ladle the sauce over the pasta and serve immediately
Nutrition
Serving: 1serving | Calories: 798kcal | Carbohydrates: 79g | Protein: 36g | Fat: 36g | Saturated Fat: 11g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 5g | Monounsaturated Fat: 17g | Trans Fat: 0.03g | Cholesterol: 92mg | Sodium: 678mg | Potassium: 791mg | Fiber: 4g | Sugar: 6g | Vitamin A: 124IU | Vitamin C: 6mg | Calcium: 63mg | Iron: 3mg
