This is a tedious technique that I learned in Marcella Hazan’sEssentials of Italian Cooking – it has changed the way I think about fresh pasta. It’s amazing and you should try it at least once.
Blanching fresh lasagna noodles for better texture
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Blanching fresh lasagna noodles for better texture (The Vegan Lasagna of Sadness)
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Ingredients
- Fresh noodles
- Large pot of heavily salted water
- Large bowl of ice water (or cold)
- Large bowl of cold water
- Spider strainer
- Baking sheet
- 3–6 clean, lint-free kitchen towels (preferably organic cotton flour sack towels) or parchment paper
Directions
Set up your space
- Fresh noodles can be problematic in lasagna. They can get too mushy. Traditional Italian recipes solve this through a tedious but worthwhile process.
- Set your fresh noodles beside your cooking area
- Bring a large pot of water to a boil, heavily salted like the sea (1/4 cup of salt)
- Set a large bowl of ice water beside your cooking area
- Set a large bowl of clean, cold water beside that
- Set a clean baking sheet with clean, lint-free kitchen towels (or parchment paper) beside that
Boil, ice, rinse, wring, dry
- Add a few of your lasagna noodles to the boiling water for 30 seconds.
- Use a spider strainer to remove and plunge them into ice water.
- Transfer them to the clean water to rinse off any surface starch. As this water gets cloudy with starch you can replace this water (usually 1–2 times for the recipe).
- Gently squeeze the noodles to remove excess water, like squeezing a sponge.
- Transfer them to a clean kitchen towel (or parchment) in single layers. Cover with a clean kitchen towel between each layer.
- This will create the most perfect noodle texture you’ve ever had.
Recipe Note
This is a very tedious but worthwhile process for fresh lasagna sheets. You likely have never had lasagna noodles with this texture before.
Fresh pasta doesn’t have much salt since salt inhibits gluten extensibility. It’s important to heavily salt the boiling water so the pasta can get some salt in it during the very brief cooking time.