Crock-Pot or Not Mexican Lasagna

Slow Cooker Saturdays

I’ve been making lasagnas for over 15 years, and I have never tried a Mexican lasagna until this year. It’s a real fun twist on the traditional Italian lasagna. This is a super easy dish to put together, especially if you use salsa. Just sub tortillas, salsa, and cheddar cheese for the standard lasagna ingredients of lasagna noodles, tomato sauce and mozzarella cheese. If you haven’t tried it before, you definitely should give it a go.

The Ingredients:

1 pound ground beef, turkey, or chicken, cooked (I used ground beef)
approximately 28 oz of salsa (if using can diced tomatoes instead, add 2 T taco seasonings, & chop up some onions and mince two garlic cloves) (I added more veggies like spinach & broccoli to healthify & blended it into the salsa)
1-2 cups of your favorite shredded cheese (I used medium cheddar)
10 oz. container ricotta cheese
approximately 8 (10 inch) whole wheat tortillas

The Directions:

Cover the bottom of the crock-pot with a thin layer of salsa.
Combine cooked meat, and the remaining salsa together.
Place a layer of tortillas in the slow cooker. Tear them to fit if needed.
Place a layer of the ricotta cheese, using 1/3 of what you have.
Sprinkle 1/3 cup of the cheddar cheese or cheese of your choice on the ricotta.
Place 1/3 of your salsa/meat mixture on the cheeses.
Repeat laying until you are out of ingredients.
Slow cook for 3 & 1/2-4 hours on high or on low for 5-7 hours.

The Results: I doubled the recipe and crock-potted one and

put the other in a pan to bake at a later date. Joshua, who is our pickiest eater, just downed this, with no prompting, which is unusually AMAZING! The first time I made it, it had too much ricotta cheese for my taste, and it was more soupy than anything, so I reduced the amount of cheese in this recipe. If

it ends up soupier than desired, use this as a dip. We dipped our nacho chips into the lasagna, and it was great.