Classic Family Lasagne · Jamie Oliver

Strip the rosemary leaves from their sprigs and chop them finely, and finely chop the 100g of bacon.

Heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a large casserole pan over high heat. Once it is properly hot, add the rosemary and bacon and fry for 2 minutes, stirring often, until the bacon starts to crisp at the edges and the kitchen smells of rosemary.

💡 Rosemary and bacon first, in that order, is what gives the ragù its backbone. Fried in fat at the start, the rosemary perfumes the whole pot; thrown in at the end it would just taste woody.

Add all 2kg of the minced beef and pork, breaking it up with a wooden spoon as you go. Turn the heat down to medium and cook for at least 10 minutes, stirring now and then, until all the liquid the meat throws out has evaporated away.

💡 Wait for the liquid to go. While the mince sits in its own water it is boiling, not browning, and boiled mince has no depth. The moment the pan turns dry it starts to catch and colour — that is the flavour you came for.

Coarsely grate the 150g of Cheddar and tip it into a bowl for later.

Blitz the carrots in a food processor until they are roughly the size of the mince, then tip them into the meat. Do the same with the onions, then the celery, adding each to the pan. Cook 15–20 minutes, stirring regularly, until the vegetables soften.

Stir in the 2 heaped tablespoons of tomato purée and the 4 tins of plum tomatoes, crushing the tomatoes against the pan with your spoon. Fill each empty tin with water and tip that in too.

Stir well, turn the heat right down, and leave it to simmer for around 2 hours, stirring occasionally, until it is thick and reduced and the fat has come up glossy at the edges.

💡 Two hours is the recipe, not a suggestion. There is no seasoning trick that will buy you the sweetness a long, slow reduction gives. Get on with the white sauce while it ticks away.

For the white sauce, trim, wash and finely slice the leeks. Put them in a pan with 2 tablespoons of oil and the bay leaves, season with a small pinch of salt and pepper, and cook over LOW heat for 30 minutes, until sweet and completely soft. Add a splash of water if they start to stick.

💡 This is where his lasagne parts company with every other one. There is no butter and no roux — the fat is olive oil and the body comes from half an hour of melted leeks. Rush it on high heat and you get browned, bitter leek instead of sweet.

Add the 4 tablespoons of flour and stir well to coat the leeks, then pour in the 1 litre of milk gradually, stirring continuously. Turn the heat up to medium, bring to the boil, then drop it back to low and cook 5–10 minutes, stirring regularly, until thickened.

Carefully transfer the sauce to the food processor and blitz until completely smooth and silky. Stir in half the grated Cheddar, grate in half the nutmeg, and season to taste.

💡 Hot liquid expands in a blender. Fill it no more than halfway, hold the lid down with a folded tea towel, and start on the lowest speed — otherwise it will redecorate your ceiling.

Preheat the oven to 190°C / gas 5. Season the finished ragù to taste.

Transfer half the ragù into freezer bags, portioned for your family. Cool to room temperature, then freeze them flat, labelled and dated.

💡 Freezing half is part of his recipe, not an afterthought — the pan is already dirty and the two hours are already spent, so you may as well bank a second dinner. Frozen flat, it thaws in a fraction of the time. Label it, unless you enjoy freezer roulette.

Build it: spoon a quarter of the ragù you kept back into a large deep ovenproof dish (roughly 25 × 30cm) and spread it level. Spoon over a quarter of the white sauce, then snap lasagne sheets over the top so they cover the sauce completely in a single layer. Repeat 3 more times, finishing with a layer of white sauce.

Scatter the remaining Cheddar over the top and bake for 45 minutes, until golden and bubbling at the edges.

Take it out and let it sit for 5–10 minutes before serving. Delicious with a crisp green salad.

💡 Those 10 minutes are the difference between a slice and a landslide. Straight from the oven the layers slide apart; rested, they set enough to cut.