Mushroom Stifado Beef & Kale Lasagna

MUSHROOM STIFADO LASAGNA WITH BEEF AND KALE

Prep Time: est. 90 min | Cook Time: 45

You may be thinking, what’s a stifado? I didn’t really know either until I made my own. It’s traditionally a Greek red sauce that usually involves a gamey meat, like lamb or duck. But since we already have turkey in ours, and Brandon doesn’t love gamey flavors, we made a mushroom.

It’s got onions, ground clove, cinnamon, a ton of mushrooms and tomato paste with wine. Essentially, cook that for an hour before hand, or literally right before you start the lasagna, and you’re golden.

You’ll have to make a traditional red butter sauce too, but I’ll also have that recipe below. The mushroom stifado you’ll only need a cup to mix in.

Just in case you wanted to see the layers up close and personal. Miraculously, this lasagna does not get soupy. You know the saying, “lasagna is always better the next day.” Well, I’m here to tell you, if you do it this way, it’s not at all, even right out the oven. No mess, no stress, no soup.

MUSHROOM STIFADO LASAGNA WITH TURKEY AND KALE RECIPE

Ingredients

Mushroom stifado ingredients

• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter

• 3/4 pound of crimini mushrooms, quartered (I use 10 oz)

• 1 onion, quartered, then halved, and peel each layer to deconstruct

• 2 cloves garlic, or 1 tablespoon container minced garlic

• 2 teaspoons fresh chopped rosemary and oregano

• 1 bay leaf

• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

• 1/4 teaspoon ground clove

• 1/2 cup red wine

• 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar

• 1/2 (5.5oz) can tomato paste

• 1 teaspoon honey

• 1/4 cup water

  Beef Step

• 1 pound ground beef

• salt, black pepper and red pepper flakes to taste for beef

  Kale Step

• 1/2 large bag of washed, chopped kale (we find ours at Aldi but they’re everywhere)

• black pepper and salt to taste for kale

  Red Sauce Ingredients

• 4 garlic gloves, minced

• 1 small onion, diced

• 3 tablespoons butter

• 2 tablespoons olive oil

• 1 teaspoon chopped fresh basil

• 1 teaspoon chopped fresh oregano

• 1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme

• 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes

• 1 teaspoon kosher salt

• 2 tablespoons tomato paste

• 28 oz can whole peeled tomatoes or 2 15oz stewed

  Lasagna Ingredients

• 4 cups or 32 oz ricotta cheese, part skim

• squeeze of half a lemon

• 1 cup parmesan cheese, grated and divided

• 2 1/2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese, divided

• 2 teaspoons ground black pepper

• package of no boil lasagna noodles, wavy preferred ( I use 9 sheets)

Tomato Butter Sauce Ingredients For Topping Lasagna

• 15 oz can tomato sauce ( I use trader joes organic)

• 1/8 cup red wine (I use a cotes du rhone)

• 3 tablespoons salted butter

• 1/2 teaspoon garam marsala

• 1 teaspoon finely chopped fresh oregano

• 1 teaspoon finely chopped fresh rosemary

• 1 teaspoon finely chopped fresh thyme

• 1/2 teaspoon ground garlic powder and onion powder

• 1 teaspoon black pepper

• 1/2 teaspoon salt

• 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes

• 1/2 cup finely chopped fresh parsley for topping the sauce

Instructions

Preheat oven to 375°F.

Let’s make the mushroom stifado first. You can make it the night before, or right before, but it does take 45 minutes to cook down, so this isn’t a quick process lasagna. In a medium size pot, melt the butter over medium heat. Add mushrooms, onions, garlic, salt, herbs and spices. Cook over medium, stirring often, for 15 minutes. You’ll be breaking down the onions in this time with stirring. Increase the heat to medium-high, add in the wine and vinegar, boil for 1 minute. Add in tomato paste and honey, combine well, then add in the water, slowly stirring it in. Return it to a boil, reduce to simmer, cover, and let it simmer for 45 minutes. When done, set aside and remove the bay leaf.

Prepare the kale by first washing the leaves. Make sure they are dry. In a large cast iron skillet, set to medium high and add a teaspoon of olive oil. Dry sauté the chopped kale for about 10 minutes, or until the kale is crispy and slightly wilted and brown on some edges. Sprinkle with cracked black pepper and salt. Set aside in a bowl for layering the lasagna later.

In that same skillet, we’ll cook the defrosted ground beef on medium-high heat. This should only take about 10 minutes. You want it to look slightly browned and then season as desired with salt and pepper and red pepper flakes. This step is important, I use a large surface area sifter spoon to remove the turkey from the skillet. You don’t want any of the juices. A big problem with soup lasagnas is the red sauce is added to the ground meat, and all the juices are still there. We don’t want that. Just put the cooked ground beef, free of juice, in another bowl.

Next, let’s do the homemade tomato sauce for inside the lasagna. In a deep saucepan on medium heat, add the olive oil and sauté the onions and add the garlic in 5 minutes in. Stir in the tomato paste. Add in the red pepper flakes, pepper and salt and let cook for about 2 minutes. Add in the tomatoes and butter. Also add the chopped basil, rosemary, oregano and thyme. Simmer for about 10 minutes. Now’s the time to use an immersion blender. Blend the tomato sauce ingredients until smooth.

While the sauce is set aside, mix in about a cup of the mushroom stifado sauce to the red sauce and then immersion blend it all together to be smooth.

Now it’s time for the cheese filling. In a large bowl, mix ricotta cheese, 1/2 cup of grated parmesan, half of the mozzarella cheese and 1 teaspoon of red pepper flakes and black pepper with the lemon juice.

Lastly, assembling the lasagna. Spread a thin layer of the mushroom stifado tomato sauce on the bottom of a sprayed non-stick 9”x13” baking dish. Cover the sauce with a layer of wavy. no boil noodles. I tend to use 3 per layer. Cover the noodles with half of the cheese mixture (I use a large spoon and do hefty scoops over the noodles and spread out with the back of the spoon to evenly distribute. Next is half the beef, then half of the kale, and half of the tomato sauce. Start your second round of layered noodles. Add the remaining cheese, beef, then the remaining kale, and top with one more layer of noodles, then add the remainder of the sauce. Sprinkle the top of the sauce layer with the remaining half of mozzarella cheese and parmesan.

Bake for 45 minutes until light brown and bubbling. Let it sit for 15 minutes before serving. IT’S HOT.

To make the topping red sauce for the lasagna, in a sauce pan, pour in the tomato sauce. Add in the wine and butter. Stir in all herbs and spices. This shouldn’t take longer than 10 minutes to heat up. Pour over the lasagna slices you’re serving, and top with the finely chopped parsley.

Enjoy!