This 4-Ingredient Ravioli Lasagna Is a Winter Weeknight Win

One holiday season, I went all in on making a vegetarian butternut squash lasagna as a special dish for a big holiday dinner. I spent hours thinly slicing butternut squash, straining canned pumpkin, rolling out handmade noodles, and even making a bechamel sauce from scratch. Then, only one person besides me ate it! Admittedly, it ended up a bit grainy and needed more salt, but I never did attempt it again. 

Inspired by a simple ravioli lasagna where fresh ravioli gets layered with a jarred pasta sauce and baked, I recently decided to revisit the flavors of that laborious lasagna.  By swapping the plain cheese ravioli for a butternut squash variety, using alfredo sauce instead of marinara, and amping up the savoriness with more squash, I ended up with one of my family’s new favorite autumnal dishes.  

What Is Ravioli Lasagna? 

Ravioli lasagna is a clever way to make a weeknight dinner that tastes like lasagna without having to parboil noodles or build elaborate layers. You combine store-bought sauce with fillings of your choice, like sausage, spinach, tomatoes, or ricotta and layer it in a baking dish with fresh store-bought ravioli. You can keep it really simple or go all-out.  

Tips for Making Butternut Squash Ravioli Lasagna 

While this dish relies on grocery store shortcuts and can be made from start to finish in under an hour, a few key tips will help make it a more memorable meal:  

• Start with butternut squash ravioli. Buying three-cheese ravioli from the dairy section of my grocery store is so routine that I nearly missed out on butternut squash ravioli for years! I find the Rana brand most often at my grocery store and in larger quantities at Costco, and the version from Trader Joe’s is great, too. If you can’t find butternut squash ravioli, this recipe would be delicious, if a little different, with a mushroom or spinach and cheese ravioli subbed in. 
• Give your butternut squash a headstart before baking. You’ll need just a few cups of chopped butternut squash to really up the flavor and texture of this ravioli lasagna, so I usually opt for a pre chopped squash from the produce section. You can also use frozen cubed squash if your grocery store doesn’t sell fresh. The key to ensuring that your squash and ravioli are done at the same time is giving your cubed squash a quick sauté before building the ravioli lasagna. I like to cook mine until it brightens in color, browns just a bit but isn’t quite fork tender. 
• Jarred Alfredo is best for this ravioli lasagna.  I love making alfredo sauce from scratch (it’s just four ingredients after all) but it doesn’t hold up well to baking with the ravioli for 45 minutes. Jarred alfredo is stable enough to bake and even absorbs a little extra moisture from the added water and the squash and still comes out creamy.  
• Add a bit of water to this casserole to help steam the ravioli. My mom always “rinsed” her pasta sauce jars with a little water and added the water to pasta dishes. Here that thrifty tip helps get every bit of alfredo sauce out of the jar and also helps soften the ravioli during the baking process. 
• An Italian cheese blend will give a big flavor boost. There are a lot of different cheeses that would be excellent on butternut squash ravioli lasagna—Gruyere or part-skim mozzarella comes to mind—but a simple pre-shredded Italian cheese blend gives you a ton of flavor while buying a single grocery item.