• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to footer navigation
  • Skip to header navigation
  • Skip to privacy navigation
  • Skip to recipes navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • About
  • My Cookbooks
  • Work With Me
  • Shop
  • Contact

The Flavor Bender

Master the Science of Delicious

  • Recipe Index
    • All Recipes
    • Desserts
      • Cakes & Cupcakes
      • Candy & Bite Sizes
      • Chocolate
      • Cookies, Brownies & Bars
      • Frozen Desserts
      • Fruit Desserts
      • Puddings & Custards
      • Dessert drinks
      • No Bake
      • Pastries & Breads
      • Sweet Syrups & Spreads
      • Tarts & Pies
      • Cheesecakes
      • Healthy sweets
    • Breakfasts
      • Tarts, Quiches, & Pies
      • Waffles, Pancakes & Crepes
      • Quick Breads, Scones & Muffins
      • Breakfast Sandwiches
      • Pastries & Breads
      • Eggs
      • Breakfast & Brunch Drinks
      • Make Ahead Breakfasts
      • Healthy Breakfasts
      • Coffee and Tea drinks
      • Breakfast Smoothies & Juices
      • Breakfast Sides
      • Casseroles
    • Courses
      • Main Meals
        • Bread, Sandwiches & Burgers
        • Curries
        • Salads
        • Roasts & BBQ
        • Soups & Stews
        • Casseroles
      • Bread
      • Lunch
      • Beverages
      • Appetizers & Tapas
      • Sides
      • Dips & Condiments
      • Tea Time & Snacks
      • Desserts
      • Meal Prep
      • Cocktails
    • Cuisines
      • American
      • European
      • Australasian
      • Sri Lankan
      • East Asian
      • Mexican
      • Middle Eastern
      • South Asian
    • Sri Lankan
      • Main Meals
      • Drinks
    • Skill Level
      • Easy
        • Easy Desserts
        • Easy Cooking
        • Easy Breads
        • Easy Breakfasts
        • Easy Dinners
      • Intermediate
        • Intermediate Desserts
        • Intermediate Cooking
        • Intermediate Breads
        • Intermediate Breakfasts
        • Intermediate Dinners
      • Advanced
        • Advanced Desserts
        • Advanced Cooking
  • New? Start Here
  • Measurement Conversions
  • How-To Posts
The Flavor Bender Recipes Courses Main Meals Polenta Lasagna Bolognese

Polenta Lasagna Bolognese

Main Meals
Jump to Recipe Print Recipe
919 shares

Disclaimer: The Flavor Bender is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program. There are links on this site that can be defined as “affiliate links”. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases (at no cost to you) that will help support this website.

Author: Dini K.
Posted: 1/11/2016
Updated: 7/17/2023

Polenta Lasagna

A meal worth gathering around, prepared with fresh ingredients and love… that’s how traditions are formed. This Polenta Lasagna Bolognese made with Homemade Marinara Sauce OR your favourite Pasta sauce isn’t just an incredibly delicious and comforting dish for cold Winter days and nights, it’s also a tradition in our household!

(Pin it for Later)

Polenta Lasagna Bolognese - This gluten free, delicious family recipe will become a favourite in your family too! Made with alot of love and #simmeredintradition

Polenta Lasagna Bolognese - Gluten free, Freezer Friendly with hidden vegetables! #simmeredintradition

The dawn of a new year will always be exciting for my husband and myself. We got married four days before the new year, just over two years ago, so the start of a new year will always be associated with memories of starting a new life, a new story, a new tradition together. So while January is the time for new resolutions for most people, for Mr K and I, it’s about creating new traditions and continuing old ones. And those traditions linked to food seem to be the strongest ones for predictable reasons. 🙂

Today’s post is about one such tradition – Polenta Lasagna Bolognese! When we got married a couple of years ago, my husband had never had polenta up until that point in his life. As a student, living on my own, I had been eating polenta for years (and loving it), so when the new year rolled around two years ago, and the temperatures plummeted in January, I wanted to make something deliciously warm and cozy to surprise Mr K with.

The result was this glorious Polenta Lasagna Bolognese and these flavour-packed spinach and mushroom polenta stacks. Making this dish is always a challenge for us, because we both end up “taste testing” the bolognese so much that we are always at risk of not having enough for the final dish. 🙂

Most people that I know who like bolognese sauce, prefer it with basil or thyme, but my choice has always been oregano. That was how I ate it and loved it growing up, and I’m yet to find a reason to part ways with that tradition after all these years. 🙂

Polenta Lasagna Bolognese - Gluten free, Freezer Friendly with hidden vegetables! #simmeredintradition

We usually make this dish with my Homemade Marinara Sauce with Hidden Vegetables – A sauce that I make sure is in my fridge! However, sometimes you don’t always have homemade at home, so it can be made with your favourite store bought pasta sauce, like Ragu marinara sauce.  The delicious tomato pasta sauce that also has a rich history that is simmered in tradition. It’s a history that goes back over 80 years, when Assunta Cantisano, arrived in the US from Italy, with her family’s tomato sauce recipe, and not a great deal else. A blend of farm-grown ingredients and uncompromising standards that truly were simmered in tradition, made her family recipe grow from local favourite to best selling brand of pasta sauce in the US.

Marinara Sauce with Hidden Vegetables - This Marinara Sauce can be used as Pasta Sauce, Base for Bolognese, Dipping Sauce OR Pizza Sauce! So Versatile and packed with flavor and HEAPS of nutrition!
You can make Marinara Sauce from scratch too! Click the photo to get the Marinara Sauce recipe

While I love making pasta and pasta sauce from scratch, time and life don’t always allow me the luxury to do that. For moments like those, I like to keep some pasta sauce handy in my pantry, but it also makes me picky about the kind of pasta sauce I buy, and the one I always seem to reach for at the grocery store is Ragu.

– Ragu has no artificial colours, flavours and no high fructose syrup.

– It’s fresh and has no artificial taste. They use farm-grown ingredients for their products that are affordable and trusted since 1937.

The cheesy goodness, the polenta infused with the flavourful bolognese sauce, the hidden vegetables… there’s so much that I like about this dish over regular pasta. Also, the bolognese sauce can make or break a lasagna, so why not use great ingredients? It’s gluten-free, and the Ragu makes it easy to prepare the bolognese as well. Plus it’s super freezer friendly!

(Pin it for Later)

Polenta Lasagna Bolognese - This gluten free, delicious family recipe will become a favourite in your family too! Made with alot of love and #simmeredintradition

While I do love creamy, cheesy polenta layers, the one thing that I find irresistible about this dish is that bubbling surface when it comes out of the oven. You know those edges where the meat sauce bubbles and mixes with the cheese to form that perfect cheesy crust? That’s what I’m talking about! 🙂

Polenta Lasagna Bolognese - Gluten free, Freezer Friendly with hidden vegetables! #simmeredintradition

Looking for more recipes?Sign up for my free recipe newsletter to get new recipes in your inbox each week! Find me sharing more inspiration on Pinterest and Instagram.

5 from 6 votes

Polenta Lasagna Bolognese

Author: Dini K.
Print Rate

Ingredients:

Beef Bolognese

  • 1.5 lb lean ground beef
  • 21/2 cups of your HOMEMADE MARINARA RECIPE or 3/4 bottle of Ragu Marinara 23.9 oz bottle
  • 2 -3 tbsp oil
  • 12 oz zucchini cut into pieces
  • 2 celery ribs cut into cubes
  • 6 cloves of garlic
  • 1 tbsp chilli flakes/crushed red pepper
  • 1 tsp pepper
  • 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
  • 2 tbsp brown sugar
  • 4 tbsp chopped oregano
  • Salt to taste

Polenta (adapted from Serious Eats)

  • 1 ½ cups stone-ground polenta
  • 7 ½ cups water
  • 4 tbsp butter
  • 5 oz parmesan cheese grated
  • ¼ cup milk optional
  • Salt to taste
  • 8 oz grated cheese I used a mix of monterey jack and mozzarella

Instructions:

Bolognese

  • Place the zucchini, celery, cloves and chilli flakes in a food processor or blender and process until pureed.
  • Heat oil in a large saucepan on medium high heat and add the vegetable puree and saute for 5-6 minutes until the vegetable puree is thick and cooked through.
  • Add ground beef and cook until the meat has browned. Add Ragu marinara sauce, sugar, pepper, balsamic vinegar and about ½ tsp of salt (you will need more, so just season as you go).
  • Mix well and reduce the heat and simmer for 15 minutes. Taste and add more salt if needed.
  • Add chopped oregano and simmer for another 15-20 minutes.
  • The bolognese sauce can be stored for later use in the fridge or freezer, OR kept aside until the polenta is ready.

Polenta

  • PREVIOUS DAY - soak the stone-ground polenta in water OVERNIGHT.
  • In a large pot, place the soaked polenta and ALL of the water, and bring the water to a boil on medium heat, stirring occasionally.
  • When the water comes to a boil, stir the polenta till it becomes thick and starts to “spit” and bubble.
  • Reduce the heat to simmer the polenta and whisk/mix frequently until it thickens and starts to come off the sides of the pot (about 30-40 minutes).
  • Add salt (to taste), butter and parmesan cheese and stir until the cheese and butter have mixed through.
  • When the polenta cools, it will thicken more. If this happens, you can loosen it up by adding a little water/milk and warming it up briefly on the stove.

Lasagna

  • Preheat oven to 400°F/205°C. Butter a 9 x 9 inch oven-safe dish.
  • Place half of the polenta mix in the buttered dish and spread it out on the bottom. Spread half the bolognese sauce and half of the grated cheese. Next spread the rest of the polenta on top of the cheese. Follow it with the rest of the bolognese sauce and then cheese. (You can cover the dish and refrigerate until needed, OR freeze for a few days).
  • Cover the top with foil and bake in preheated oven for 20-30 minutes (longer if it had been refrigerated). Then uncover the dish and let the cheese melt, brown and bubble (about 15 minutes, depending on your oven).
  • Remove the dish from the oven and let it rest for 15 - 20 minutes before cutting into it. Best served warm.

Tips & Tricks

NOTES - if you cut into the lasagna while it's still very hot, the polenta will be too soft to be cut cleanly. So let it rest for 15-20 minutes before you cut into it.

“This website provides approximate nutrition information for convenience and as a courtesy only. Nutrition data is gathered primarily from the USDA Food Composition Database, whenever available, or otherwise other online calculators.”

Did you make this?Tag me on Instagram!I love seeing what you’ve made! Tag me on Instagram at @TheFlavorBender or leave me a comment & rating below.

Polenta Lasagna Bolognese - This gluten free, delicious family recipe will become a favourite in your family too! Made with alot of love and #simmeredintradition

You could use quick polenta for this recipe too, though I would recommend traditional stone-ground polenta. Quick polenta tastes quite bland in comparison, although adding extra parmesan cheese could help.

This bolognese recipe should serve you well, whether you want to make polenta lasagna, pasta lasagna or spaghetti bolognese. It’s an absolute winner and has all the makings of a new tradition for your family too! It’s a warm, comforting meal and is a fantastic way to get some hidden veggies in to your kids too!

While Assunta created a legacy with her tried and tested family tradition, I’m glad that it made it’s way to our dining table and helped us create a delicious new tradition as well.

If you liked this recipe don’t forget to subscribe for new (and free) recipes by entering your email address below or on the side bar (and get all these recipes delivered straight to your inbox), so you don’t miss out on a thing. You can find me on FACEBOOK, TWITTER, INSTAGRAM, PINTEREST and GOOGLE-PLUS too.

More Recipes You'll Love...

  • Spinach and Mushroom Polenta Stacks
  • Apricot and Chorizo Bolognese - an easy dinner recipe that can be made with homemade or storebought pasta! Sweet and smoky flavors of this pasta dish will win you over in a snap!
    Apricot and Chorizo Bolognese with Turmeric Pasta
  • Soft and delicious Dairy Free Brioche Bread Loaf
    Dairy Free Brioche Bread

Reader Interactions

Leave a Review Cancel reply

I love hearing from you! Submit your question or recipe review here.

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Made this? Rate this recipe:




This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

  1. Linda Peace says

    July 24, 2020 at 17:38

    5 stars
    So incredible. I wouldn’t change a thing. I love the polenta combo with the rich meat bolognaise sauce.

    Reply
  2. Game Chef says

    February 23, 2016 at 09:00

    Love the speed photos/video of you layering. WOW and that is the best justification blog of Ragu Ive ever read. 🙂 Thanks for the recipe.

    Reply
    • Dini says

      February 23, 2016 at 09:59

      Thank you! 🙂 I love this recipe because you can make it with store bought OR homemade marinara sauces too! If you do want a homemade marinara recipe, there’s one on the blog now too!

      Reply
  3. Christine | Mid-Life Croissant says

    January 29, 2016 at 12:33

    In case I hadn’t made my feelings on this abundantly clear already ILOVETHISDISH! xo

    Reply
  4. Bam's Kitchen says

    January 23, 2016 at 18:44

    5 stars
    Brilliant cozy dish and full of flavor and so excited as I can eat it too as it is gluten-free. I love how your title says hidden veggies…only moms notice this kind of thing and I am so doing that. Pinned and shared. Gorgeous shots.

    Reply
  5. mimi says

    January 20, 2016 at 11:09

    The lasagna looks lovely, but there’s no way in hell I’d buy Ragu! I’m not trying to be rude, but there is so much sugar in jarred pasta sauces that even if I’m in a pinch I can’t spend money on any of them. It’s not that I’m a freak about nutrition, it’s just that sugar just doesn’t belong in pasta sauce. I can whip up a marinara in 5 minutes though, and I’d definitely use it in this recipe!!! Very pretty pictures!

    Reply
  6. ganu says

    January 19, 2016 at 13:58

    5 stars
    That last gif was mouthwatering!!

    Reply
  7. Winnie says

    January 14, 2016 at 06:55

    It looks fabulous!!
    I’m a vegetarian (and we don’t eat meat and dairy together), but it looks so good that I think I just might try it with ground-soy (from experience it should be good)

    Reply
    • Jay says

      February 18, 2016 at 19:27

      I have used textured veg protein in place of beef so many times and NO ONE has ever guessed that it’s not beef.

      Reply
  8. cathy says

    January 13, 2016 at 14:39

    I love polenta!! And this dish bring polenta to a whole new level!!! Yummmm!!!
    Cathy

    Reply
  9. Analida's Ethnic Spoon says

    January 12, 2016 at 18:13

    5 stars
    I love the polenta with these flavors! Great combination!

    Reply
  10. Zita says

    January 12, 2016 at 16:55

    Your blog as is entertaining, exciting and mouth watering as ever! I wish it Happy 2016 and a loooong life!
    Zita

    Reply
  11. Kevin | Keviniscooking says

    January 12, 2016 at 13:47

    5 stars
    Holy Heck! This has me drooling. LOVE polenta and this combo is awesome. Pinned, Tweeted and am hungry now.

    Reply
  12. Ilona @ Ilona's Passion says

    January 12, 2016 at 09:18

    I love Ragu! I always buy it whenevr I am on store. Very delicious recipe!

    Reply
  13. Molly Kumar says

    January 11, 2016 at 17:15

    5 stars
    This looks delicious Dini. I’ve never had Polenta (though have heard of it 😉 and this recipe makes wanna run to the store and get it. Awesome!

    Reply

Primary Sidebar

Hey there!

Hi! I’m Dini, a third culture kid by upbringing and a food-geek by nature. I was born in Sri Lanka, grew up in New Zealand and lived in Australia, and then the US, before moving to Canada in 2019! My food is a reflection of those amazing experiences!

Read More
Secret Layer Cakes Cookbook
The flavor bender
cookbook
Buy now on Amazon!

Recipe Basics

Learn how to make Perfect Choux Pastry (Or Pate a Choux!) - The only recipe guide you will ever need to make choux pastry, with perfect results every time. Plus a troubleshooting guide for your choux pastry recipe.  Fool proof choux pastry to make profiteroles, eclairs, cream puffs and more.  #ChouxPastry #Profiteroles #Eclairs #Pastry #CreamPuffs

How to make Perfect Choux Pastry

Classic Chocolate Eclairs - A foolproof recipe for making perfect eclairs that are crisp and puffy and filled with chocolate or vanilla pastry cream. 

Perfect Classic Chocolate Eclairs (Foolproof Recipe)

How to make Marshmallows - Learn the art of making fluffy, soft homemade marshmallows with or without corn syrup! With tips and information to make the perfect Marshmallows in many flavors. 

How to make Marshmallows (tips and tricks for homemade marshmallows)

How to make the best Homemade White Bread that is soft and delicious. An easy to follow recipe for perfect homemade bread with step by step instructions.

The Best Homemade Bread (White Bread Recipe)

Homemade French Croissants (step by step recipe)

Classic Pound Cake - A complete guide on how to make perfect, delicious and moist Pound Cake even if you're a baking novice! Tips + Tricks and Troubleshooting guide. 

The Best Classic Pound Cake Recipe

Chocolate
Cakes
Bread
Sri Lankan
Breakfast
Drinks
Candy
Pastries
All Recipes
Featured On
taste of the World
Free recipe ebook

Get my curated collection of the Top 10 Flavor Bender recipes!

  • 10 delicious chocolate recipes
  • Creative ways to use chocolate
  • Desserts and savory recipes
Download now!

Reader Faves

How to make Instant Pot Short Ribs - This easy recipe makes delicious, tender and succulent short ribs with classic flavors!

How to make the Best Instant Pot Short Ribs

Buttery Lemon Slow Roasted Salmon with Lemon Butter Sauce - Perfectly cooked, juicy slow roasted Salmon with a buttery tangy sauce! Delicious and versatile for any meal and occasion. 

Slow Roasted Salmon with Lemon Butter Sauce

Unbelievably easy Rough Puff pastry - Quick and easy to make and tasted infinitely better than store bought (30 -45 minutes only)! No long waiting times, to make this amazing pastry and NOONE will know you took a shortcut!

Perfect Quick and Easy Rough Puff Pastry

Spicy Sweet Chilli Sauce Easy to make, absolutely delicious, with an extra kick of spice this is the BEST Sweet chilli sauce you will EVER have!

The Best Spicy Sweet Chili Sauce (Easy Recipe!)

The flavor bender

I love baking, and I love cooking. I experiment with flavors, textures and ingredients, and I love passing on all my tips and tricks to you!

Read More
  • About
    • Meet Dini
    • My Book
    • Work With Me
    • Contact
  • Browse
    • Recipes
    • Measurement Guide
    • Baking How-To’s
    • Shop My Faves
© The Flavor Bender
  • Privacy
  • Disclosure
  • Terms
Site Credits Designed by Melissa Rose Design Developed by Once Coupled

Join the flavor bender tribe!

Join my FREE recipe challenge to receive new recipes and dinner ideas straight to your inbox!
919 shares