The lasagna with asparagus and cooked ham is a tasty and inviting dish. For the recipe, I used ready-made egg pasta sheets, covered with a delicious and simple béchamel sauce, made with milk, butter, and flour, fresh seasonal asparagus, and cooked ham that makes this dish even richer. Ideal to serve on any occasion.
- Difficulty: Easy
- Cost: Economical
- Preparation time: 55 Minutes
- Portions: 3/4 people
- Cooking methods: Oven
- Cuisine: Italian
- Seasonality: Spring
Ingredients
- 2 cups milk
- 2 tbsps butter
- 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
- 2 tsps water
- to taste nutmeg
- 1.1 lbs asparagus
- 5.3 oz cooked ham
- 8 sheets lasagna sheets
- to taste butter
- to taste Grana Padano cheese, grated
- to taste black pepper
Tools
- Food scale
- Small pot
- Saucepan
- Small bowl
- Knife
- Hand whisk
- Food scale
- Asparagus steamer
- Colander
- Knife
- Cutting board
- Spoon
- Baking dish
Preparation
To prepare the lasagna with asparagus and cooked ham…
First, let’s focus on the asparagus. Take the asparagus, place them horizontally on a cutting board, and with a knife, cut off the end part, the damaged and white-light green part, about 3/4 inch (if necessary, even more).
Then start peeling them gently (be careful not to break them) with a vegetable peeler from the base where you cut, for about 3/4 inch, to remove the remaining filaments.
Once cleaned from the hard parts, rinse them under cold running water and tie them with kitchen twine.
Fill the asparagus steamer with water, about half of the pot (you don’t need to wet the tips, they will gently steam cook), place it on high heat and bring to a boil.
Once boiling, immerse the bunch of asparagus in the boiling water with coarse salt and cook for 15 minutes. One way to check if they’re done is to see if the tips are slightly bent or try piercing the stem with a fork. They should not be too soft. After the cooking time, drain them and dab gently with a cloth.
To prepare the béchamel – classic recipe, take two small pots, heat the milk in one (it should not boil) and melt the butter in the other on low heat without burning it.
Once the butter has melted, lower the heat, add the flour (be careful not to let it turn brown), and stir with a whisk, incorporating the two ingredients well.
Remove the pot with flour and butter from the heat, pour in the hot milk, 2 teaspoons of water (this way the béchamel won’t become sticky), and continue stirring, return everything to the heat for a few minutes to thicken the béchamel. Finally, season it with nutmeg and salt.
At this point, take a rectangular baking dish, butter it, and pour a spoonful of béchamel. Then take a pasta sheet and place it inside.
Spread some béchamel on the sheet with a spoon, add the cut asparagus pieces (leave some tips for the final layer), cooked ham cut into strips or chopped, grated Grana Padano cheese, and a sprinkle of pepper.
Continue in this way with the other seven lasagna sheets and until you run out of ingredients, leaving the last layer visible where you can use the remaining asparagus tips. Finally, add a few curls of butter on top.
Bake the lasagna with asparagus and cooked ham in a preheated oven at 356°F and cook for 15 minutes in fan mode. Serve hot.
Variations
Alternatively to ready-made or homemade lasagna sheets, you can use your favorite short pasta shape, pre-cooked and seasoned in the same way.
If you can’t find fresh asparagus because it’s out of season, you can replace them with frozen ones, following the instructions on the package.
You might be interested…
Barazzoni Asparagus and Vegetable Cooker with Basket, Diameter 6.3 inches, 18/10 Stainless Steel
