This Chef Says These Are The Mistakes Everyone Makes When Cooking Lasagna

"I never met a lasagna I didn't like," said Garfield, that chubby cartoon cat created by Jim Davis. Garfield's sentiment is true of most of us, yet you probably agree that some lasagna is better than others. What makes that creamy, comforting lasagna you're served with a glass of Italian red in that unpretentious restaurant better than the lasagna you labor over at home? Is it something you're leaving out? Something you're putting in? 

Both, according to Pat DiCicco, whose family's restaurant currently has 19 Central California locations, 12 of them in Fresno. DiCicco's grandparents founded the first DiCicco's in 1956, and Pat, who grew up in those restaurants, now works in food sales. When his family started the first restaurant, they baked their own bread every morning, its scent whetting the appetites of everyone within smelling distance of the place. Combining their Italian love for food with the preferences of their American customers, they served 23 to 35 giant restaurant-size pans of lasagna a week and continue to be legendary in the restaurant community of California's San Joaquin Valley today.

Making a great lasagna takes time and experience, he says. Now, DiCicco shares his tips for improving your lasagna by examining what you might be doing wrong and bringing your already good lasagna up to chef quality. "I like putting a smile on people's faces," DiCicco says. And a good lasagna can do just that. 

Noodles are bland, right? You always add salt to the boiling water. How else are you going to keep them from making your lasagna boring? Then, you taste them and maybe add a little more salt because you want to be sure your lasagna has plenty of flavor. That's a major mistake most people make, says Pat DiCicco. "I don't put salt in the water. It's in the cheese, in the sauce, in the meat," he says. 

If your noodles are too salty, you're on your way to an overly salty lasagna. While it's possible to rescue oversalted sauces by adding a slice of raw potato, you won't need to go to that trouble if you start by reducing or omitting the salt at the very beginning by boiling your lasagna noodles in unsalted water. Also, make sure the pan you use is large enough. The lasagna noodles need to be able to move around and stretch out so that they cook uniformly. You'll have better results with a pan that's too big than a smaller one that crowds your noodles. Don't worry, at this stage, about salt. You'll have plenty of opportunities to adjust your seasonings later. 

You can't go wrong with cheese. Some people pile on the mozzarella. Others swear by cottage cheese as the secret weapon for lasagna instead of ricotta. However, the best lasagna is made with the very best cheese. Pat DiCicco likes to add creamier cheeses like fontina or Asiago to the mozzarella, but suggests that most people use too much cheese. "Lasagna is supposed to melt in your mouth," he says. That's difficult to do when it's buried under a mountain of cheese. He has a tip for dealing with hard cheeses, too: Pick up small pieces of Parmesan or pecorino on sale. "It's the cheapest way to buy cheese, and they stay nice in the freezer," he says. An expensive cheese, even in a small amount, will elevate your lasagna. "The better the cheese, the better the lasagna," DiCicco notes.

Grating cheese is always a risk, especially when you're distracted. How many times have you bloodied your knuckles because you were in a hurry or the cheese bounced off the grater?  The solution? Put the cheese in a small personal blender the way Italian chef DiCicco does. "It's the best place to grate coffee beans or cheese," he says. In moments, you'll have cheese that smells and tastes freshly grated. Serve a little extra at the table, along with a bowl of warm sauce, and you'll have a dish that is worthy of the time you put into it. 

Once you've invested the time and energy into making lasagna, you might be tempted to keep building it layer upon layer. You can't have too much of a good thing, can you? According to Pat DiCicco, you can. He says you should make two or three layers; no more than three. 

"If you put a layer of sauce on the very bottom, it'll help keep it more moist," DiCicco says. Then, build your layers with meat, if you're using it, ricotta cheese or béchamel, and then more cheese on the top. These are substantial layers, and you don't need that many of them. "You can use fresh mozzarella or dried mozzarella," DiCicco says. "Hard cheeses, you always grate. Soft cheeses, you shred. You can also slice them and layer them like that if you have a slicer. Or you can buy the sliced mozzarella and do it like that." He suggests using a young Parmesan when layering with the mozzarella cheese, and an aged, more expensive Parmesan on top. 

And go easy on the vegetables. Some parts of Italy will make a ragù sauce with a combination of celery, onion, and carrots, known as sofrito in Italy and a mirepoix in France. "You've got to be careful when you use that," DiCicco says. "If you put in too many carrots or celery, it will destroy your lasagna. Use celery lightly as a condiment. You don't want your sauce to taste like a stalk of celery."

When you're making lasagna, you might be tempted to layer on the seasonings. This is an Italian dish, after all; it requires Italian seasonings. There may be a time when you want to veer from the traditional and experiment with unique ingredients you could be using in your lasagna, ranging from sun-dried tomatoes to pesto. If you want a lasagna that looks and tastes as if it came from an Italian chef, however, keep it simple, Pat DiCicco says. "Five, maybe six ingredients. That's it. Most people over-season their sauce. They think more is better. If you put more than five ingredients in it, you're probably going overboard." He emphasizes the importance of what he calls "a clean bite." When you bite into that perfectly assembled lasagna, you don't want your tastebuds to encounter a barrage of conflicting flavors. 

The same is true of the meat you use. Perhaps you're using the traditional ground beef or sausage; maybe sausage mixed with ground turkey if you want a lighter sauce. Whatever you choose, make sure it cools off to room temperature before you start adding extra seasonings. Once you're finishing the sauce, it is time to decide if you'd like to add a little olive oil or fresh basil. You can even add a little bit of butter to make it more creamy.

When you finish your lasagna, think like a chef, and you'll end up with a chef-worthy creation. That means don't just bake the lasagna. A bain marie is ideal for keeping a uniform temperature around the lasagna as it cooks, Pat DiCicco says. Although it's best not to simply bake lasagna, many people do. "They just put it in the oven because it's all they were taught," DiCicco says.

You may not have a commercial steam table in your kitchen, but you can still get the same effect without spending a dime. DiCicco suggests putting the lasagna on a bigger pan or cookie sheet with high sides. Add hot water around the lasagna pan so that the lasagna will bake in its own dish while that dish sits in the barely simmering water bath. The concept is the same as when you use a double boiler to melt chocolate or make hollandaise sauce. When you taste the difference, this is one step you will not skip.