This article may result in getting cursed by my Italian ancestors, but I must speak my truth. Lasagna is overrated. I would take pretty much any other type of pasta dish over lasagna given the option and it’s not particularly close.
I have to preface this by saying that lasagna isn’t bad. I think it tastes perfectly fine; I just won’t be jumping out of my seat in excitement for a dinner centered around lasagna. So if any family members are reading this, please don’t bring this up every time we eat lasagna. It’s already bad enough when literally everybody I know says stuff like “we’ve got some fresh watermelon just for you, I know it’s your faaaavorite.” I thank all of you in advance for your discretion.
The problems with lasagna start with the texture. The cheese, sauce, meat and pasta itself form to make a superteam of mush. Every other type of pasta comes out perfectly al dente, but lasagna is almost always soft. Combine that with the gratuitous amounts of cheese and one gets a slice that is crowded at best and is disgusting slop at worst.
Lasagna also has terrible bite-to-bite consistency. The ingredients and pasta jostle around, so some bites contain just pasta while others include just meat and cheese, creating an uneven dish that is ultimately unsatisfactory. Every other pasta dish doesn’t have this issue since the sauce and other toppings aren’t stacked like the straw house from the three little pigs.
The ingredients also don’t save lasagna since it just includes tomato sauce, cheese and meat. This is quite literally the most basic combination of ingredients that Italian-American cuisine has to offer. It’s not bad, but it leaves a lot to be desired when there’s dishes out there that include more varied and interesting ingredients.
I’ve also eaten lots of lasagna that puts the Middle East to shame with the amount of oil it produces.
At this point I’m sure many are saying things such as “Well, he hasn’t had my perfectly portioned lasagna with the finest ingredients that’s also blessed by the Pope, so his opinion is invalid.” That may very well be true. It also very well may be true that after growing up and eating plenty of food courtesy of my Italian grandmother that perhaps the dish just isn’t that great.
Lasagna is a deeply flawed dish that doesn’t deserve the near-universal praise it gets. There’s many pasta dishes that are simpler to make that also taste better. I’ll eat lasagna if served, but I’ll be dreaming of linguine topped with shrimp, squid, scallops and clams served in a wonderful garlic sauce.