Lasagna Cupcakes

A few months ago, I bought a Hungry Girl cookbook and fell in love with her recipe for Lasagna Cupcakes. After making this recipe a few times, I found that her ingredient measurements were off and I liked some things more than others, so I changed it up a bit.

Ingredients
1 tbsp. olive oil
6 oz. lean ground beef (I usually suck with measurements for meat -- I use about a 1/4 pkg. of the ground beef tray)
pinch of salt
pinch of pepper (more or less, depending on what you prefer)
1/2 chopped onion
1/4 cup chopped mushrooms (I buy 2 medium-sized mushrooms)
1 tomato, crushed (you can also use 1/4 jar of pasta sauce, which tastes just as good)
1 tsp. garlic powder (or chopped garlic)
1/2 tsp. Italian seasoning


1 cup ricotta cheese
3-5 ounces chopped spinach (I use about 2 handfuls, depending on what you want the spinach-to-ricotta ratio to be like)
1 whole egg
1/4 tsp. garlic powder
18 square wonton wrappers
1/2 cup mozzarella cheese (enough to cover the tops of 6 "cupcakes")

Directions


Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

1. In a large skillet, bring olive oil to medium-high heat. Add meat and season with salt and pepper. Cook (and crumble) until no longer pink (5-7 minutes).

2. Add onion and mushrooms, stirring often, for about 5 minutes or until veggies are soft.

Beef, onion, mushrooms

3. Reduce heat to low. Add crushed tomatoes, garlic, and Italian seasoning. Stir occasionally for 10 minutes. Set aside.

Using Classico sauce instead of crushed tomato

4. While meat mixture is simmering, in a bowl, combine spinach, ricotta cheese, egg, a pinch of salt, and garlic powder. Mix well.

Ricotta and spinach

Ricotta mixture (minus the spinach)

5. Spray a 6-cup muffin pan with nonstick spray (I usually dab a napkin with some butter and grease the pan that way). Press one wonton wrapper into each cup, then another to cover any remaining space. Evenly distribute 1/2 of the spinach-ricotta mixture among the cups (about 1 tbsp. per cup).

First layer!

6. Evenly distribute 1/2 of the meat mixture among the cups (about 1 tbsp. per cup). Top with some mozzarella cheese, then press a 3rd wonton wrapper onto this layer. Repeat this layering process one last time (so you have 2 layers of meat, ricotta and cheese). Note that you should only use 3 wrappers per cup (i.e. don't put a wrapper on the very top).

Completed project!

7. Bake for 10 minutes, or until cheese has melted and edges are browned.

Yummy!

Enjoy! But be careful, since they can be quite hot :)

(Makes 6 servings)