2. Recipes & Cooking Tips, Katrina Meynink recipe, pork
PORK AND FENNEL SAUSAGE GREEN LASAGNE
PORK AND FENNEL SAUSAGE GREEN LASAGNE
This lasagne works any night of the week, but it’s especially good when time is short and you still want something generous and satisfying on the table.
Instead of a long-simmered ragù and careful layers, this version leans on one of our best-selling products: Italian pork and fennel sausages. These stellar bangers are made simply with coarse ground Australian pork, salt, pepper and fennel seeds. That simplicity brings plenty of flavour, which means you can build a great dish without a long ingredient list or hours at the stove.
The sausage meat is removed from the skins and browned until golden. A vibrant green sauce comes together with a quick blitz of greens, wine and stock. The lasagne sheets are torn and tucked haphazardly into the sauce rather than layered neatly — rustic, forgiving and exactly what a busy weeknight needs.
Thirty to forty minutes later, you’ve got bubbling sauce, creamy pockets of mozzarella and those lovely golden spots across the top.
It’s a bit of dinnertime alchemy.
This lasagne will comfortably feed 5–6 hungry people.
You’ll need an approximately 30cm x 22cm high-sided roasting tray.
KATRINA MEYNINK
INGREDIENTS
Splash olive oil
1kg pork and fennel sausages, casings removed, meat roughly chopped
4 eschalots, sliced
6 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
1 bunch cavalo nero, stems of larger leaves removed, chopped
1 cup loosely packed flat leaf parsley
½ cup loosely packed dill fronds
1 cup white wine
2 cups chicken stock
1 x 375g packet of fresh lasagne sheets
1 cup grated parmesan
150 ml cream
1 ball buffalo mozzarella (approx. 125g) coarsely torn
Sea salt flakes and freshly cracked pepper to season
METHOD
Preheat oven to 180°C.
Place a large frying pan over medium heat. Once hot, add the oil and cook the sausage meat until cooked through and golden. As it cooks, use your wooden spoon to break the meat into smaller chunks. Scoop into a bowl.
Add the eschalots and garlic to the pan juices and cook until soft and fragrant, about five minutes. Add the cavalo nero, parsley and dill fronds, stirring quickly until they begin to soften. This will happen quickly.
Add the wine and stock and continue stirring until the greens have softened. Pour the lot into a blender and blitz until you have a beautiful green sauce. Pour the sauce into your roasting tray.
Add the cooked sausage meat and stir to coat. Coarsely tear the lasagne sheets and push gently into the sauce – this is not meant to be perfect and you don’t need to use the entire packet of lasagne sheets – I generally always have one or two left over.
Gently pour over the cream and sprinkle over the parmesan.
Throw in the torn pieces of buffalo mozzarella and give everything a generous seasoning of salt and pepper.
Cook for 35 – 45 minutes in the oven until the sauce is bubbling and you see a few lovely, tanned spots across the dish.
Serve piping hot.
