If it is 4:30 in the afternoon and you just popped on my site to get an idea for dinner this is the perfect recipe for a last minute dinner. Ravioli Lasagna is the lazyman’s lasagna, but no one will ever know. In between activity drop offs, run into the grocery store and grab a couple ingredients and pull off a meal that looks like it took a lot of planning.

I try to make meal plans for the week, but lets be honest, life gets in the way sometimes. Travel comes up, someone gets sick, you have to stand in line for 5 hours to get your license renewed or stand in line for 5 hours to get your iphone fixed… and your fabulous plan falls by the way side. When that happens there are many times I just say “We are going out to dinner”, but going out to dinner on a school night is hard so I try to have a few “lazyman” recipes in my back pocket. This is one of those recipes.

This is not a fancy dinner, but my family loves it and it takes me about 10 minutes to assemble and about 35 to bake. I use frozen ravioli, jarred pasta sauce, pre-shredded mozzarella and and a container of ricotta. I buy a loaf of baked bread and a bag of salad and dinner is served!

You can make this more elaborate by adding crumbled sausage to the pasta sauce or adding chopped basil to the ricotta or even making your own ravioli, yeah right!

This will be a hit and tomorrow night we will tackle something a bit more complicated.

Ravioli Lasagna

Serves 4-6

2 lb. frozen ravioli (cheese, meat, spinach....whatever you like)

1 (24oz) jarred pasta sauce

2 cups shredded mozzarella

1 1/2 cups ricotta (whole milk or skim)

Preheat oven to 375Â°

Grease a 9x13" baking dish. Pour a small amount of sauce in the bottom of the dish and spread evenly. Lay 1/3 of the ravioli in an even layer over the sauce. Spread about 1/2 cup of ricotta over the ravioli. Sprinkle about 1/2 cup of mozzarella over the ricotta. Repeat the layers until you have 3 layers (sauce, ravioli, ricotta, mozzarella)

Cover with foil and bake for 35 minutes or until heated through. Remove the foil and bake for an additional 10 minutes until the cheese becomes browned.

Serve with extra warmed sauce if desired.