Greek layered lasagna with béchamel sauce or pastitsio, is a baked pasta casserole, combining fabulous homemade meat sauce with noodles, béchamel sauce all under a golden crust of loads of hot delicious greek cheese. It is an ultimate comfort dinner food that’s boosts greek cuisine inspired flavors. Layers of freshly cooked pastitsio noodles, made from scratch meat sauce with a hint of cinnamon and infused with tomato sauce, creamy, luscious traditional béchamel sauce and greek Kasseri cheese.
Let me explain a couple of the ingredient of this Greek baked lasagna with bechamel sauce. Pastitsio noodles are long, tube shaped pasta. They are sturdy and perfect for soaking in all the juices from the robust meat sauce that is layered on top of them.
Not to mention this greek lasanga looks mesmerizing when cut. Almost too beautiful dish to eat. You can find them in the European food stores or online, or sub for ziti or penne.
Kasseri cheese has unique and unmistakable flavor. Kasseri is a semi-hard, mild buttery cheese. Young Kasseri cheese has a sweet and delicate flavor that is piquant and has slightly salty taste. The texture is soft and stringy which is perfect for melting. You can find it in Whole Foods or in specialty cheese shops or sub parmesan.
The process of making traditional authentic Greek lasagna recipe is a copycat of its Italian cousin recipes. Make meat sauce, boil noodles according to instructions, create best béchamel sauce from milk and butter, grate the parmesan cheese or other cheese mixture and generously sprinkle it, assemble the casserole and bake this amazing pasta concoction in the oven. Like I mentioned before, sliced pastitsio is a piece of art of its own. But It is not just pretty to look at, the taste is unbelievable. Soft noodles soaked in residual juices from best greek herbs infused meat sauce and béchamel, under a blanket of melty, savory cheese. Authentic Greek food at its best.
This greek lasagne is interesting, original and a nice lyrical retreat from the average Italian lasagna with red tomato sauce. I actually might even like this meal better. All the flavors work in unison without overpowering each other.
