Slow Cooker Lasagna

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I love Alton Brown and am a better cook beacuse of him, but sometimes his recommendations are ridiculous. This time I'm afraid he's finally "jumped the shark." I gave it two stars instead of one for the tip about preparing the lasagna noodles by soaking them in hot water instead of boiling them.

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I am great fan of AB, his show and applications. I watched this show and was disgusted. Lasagna is comfort food, but this recipe is far from it. I have made a lot of lasagna in my life and the joy comes from the marriage of slow simmered tomato sauce, meat or seafood, cheese, and pasta. AB, you need to atone for this application.

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I've never been disappointed with a Good Eats recipe. This one was a huge disappointment. I was very curious to try lasagna in a crock pot. Everything worked according to directions. The flavor was very bland. I was able to get the grease out with the pot lid, but the meat was so pressed together, it grossed my kids out. We won't be trying this again and I'm not sure I can convince the kids to eat the leftovers. I guess I prefer lasagna with meat sauce and cheese. There really wasn't enough tomato flavor in this either. This seems more like health food lasagna and not good eats.

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Look, I'm a huge fan of Alton's, but this recipe is an abomination against all that's good and holy.

I'm not sure if the slow cooker lasagna idea itself is so bad... it might be possible to save it. This, however, isn't good.

There's still some good advice here. Soaking rather than cooking the noodles is brilliant. Hand-crushing tomatoes instead of sauce really does help manage the liquid. And if you can handle lasagna without cheese—I can't—the powdered milk really does get you the essence of what you need.

If you're dead set on trying this, do yourself a favor and brown and drain the meat first. Sure, it's not going to be at its best after hours in a slow cooker, but compared to the oil slick this recipe creates—and no, squeezing the oil out with a pot lid is not an acceptable solution—it'll be for the best.

Or just make a real lasagna. It's not any more difficult than this.

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Full disclosure: Huge fan of AB. Met him, got the book signed, awesome experience. The lasagna was horrible. Way too greasy, and the texture of the sausage was off as well. It tasted like pressed boiled meat. Also the color of the dish wasn't appetizing. I was excited to try it, but incredibly disappointed; we ended up throwing the whole crock pot away minus 2 little slices. My main complaint is that it really doesn't taste like lasagna. If you need comfort food, buy Stoffers.

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How does he do it? I was 'back of my mind' planning a lasagna meal, but it had been so long since my aunt had fixed me a great one, I was timid. So last night, we sit down, watch Good Eats and I got it. I low slow cooker meals. We had lasagna as a Friday non-meat meal a lot of the time, so I'm used to the cheese and suace, more than the meat and veggies. Eggplant has never been my favorite, but if you do as Mr. Brown says and 'Own the recipe' you can make it your way in nothing flat. Made it his way the first time (yes I will be making again, and loved it (even [shudder] the eggplant. Thanks Alton, I love your work, have ALL you books and tapes, and even tried to build a few of your gadgets.