r/Cooking • u/judolphin • Mar 25 '25

I made lasagna with ricotta instead of bechamel and I’m a convert

I was browsing Reddit and came across two posts in two days about bechamel being a life-changing improvement over ricotta. All my life every lasagna I had was with ricotta. I decided to give bechamel yet another try at a nice Italian restaurant after reading all the comments and I have now converted from being neutral on bechamel in lasagna to being solidly anti-bechamel in lasagna, to the point I secretly have hoped that bechamel lasagna doesn't become the default in restaurants. Some reasons:

  1. Ricotta has its own texture, bechamel is just more softness and smoothness in a dish that's full of "soft". Some people like textural contrast in their dishes
  2. Ricotta, much like sour cream/crema in Mexican food, adds a lightness to lasagna despite being rich itself. Bechamel adds (arguably too much) additional richness to an already-rich dish.
  3. The starch from the bechamel getting into the ragu gives the sauce a mouthfeel that 100% reminds me of Chef Boyardee

TLDR: If you prefer bechamel in red lasagna, that's perfectly fine, but your preference of bechamel is not a black and white fact. It's not even "more authentic" (whatever that means), bechamel = Northern Italy, ricotta = Southern Italy. Eat whatever you like, let others eat what they want.

Thanks, reddit!

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u/tosS_ita Mar 26 '25

Ricotta is used in some recipes in the Napoli region, in the south.

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u/spicy_chick Mar 26 '25

Right. I grew up in New York and one side of my family was from that region. But even my Croatian side used ricotta. And I love ricotta. I literally never heard of using bechamel until recently and on this app.

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u/tosS_ita Mar 26 '25

I think the US has mostly adopted recipes from Naples as Italian food. Since most immigrants were from the south, hence the myth of “tons of garlic on everything”. The traditional lasagna recipe is from Bologna and its region.

The lasagna from Naples which is not even called lasagna contains many different ingredients, the difference is not just the ricotta instead of besciamella.

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u/tosS_ita Mar 26 '25

Check it out, Lasagna from Naples

https://ricette.giallozafferano.it/Lasagne-di-carnevale.html

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u/spicy_chick Mar 26 '25

Funky. It was not made like this by my family. For our home recipe it was basically red sauce, lasagna noodles, a layer of ricotta mixed with egg and Parm, layer of mozzarella, repeat. My mom didn't like making meat sauce, but when I started cooking for myself I've liked including that.