Let me start with a bit of history.
Normal don’t care much how to eat their pasta—they simply cook it, add whatever they have (even mayo probably or nothing at all) and eat it. Italians are different, they select pasta sauce first and then decide what pasta will go fine with it. In case of meat sauce (or ragù as locals call it) Italians considered that wide plain pasta would go best with it for some reason. So they competed who can use the wider noodles and the guy who simply took the whole plates won. But it was a bit inconvenient to cook them and then mix with sauce so they’ve switched to oven baking the whole thing in sauce instead. And that’s how lasagne was born (probably; Italians have a completely different story to tell but they always do).
Since I’d better avoid meat entirely, I decided to cook my own version with various components (in several tries too) and here’s my short summary:
- it’s better to use thick sauces;
- tomato sauce is a definite must, it adds flavour;
- cheese sauce is good mostly for the lowest layer (to lay lasagne plates on it) and for pouring on top;
- ricotta and Quark make fine layers too, you can even mix them with some vegetables;
- sliced boiled eggs would make a nice addition to a layer with tomato sauce;
- mozzarella is better avoided since it will result in hard chewy chunks contrasting with the texture of the rest of the dish.
Overall, it’s nice dish, would bake again.
I’d suggest to add (wall)nuts to the cheese sauce and grate some firm cheese on top and make it gratin.
If you feel like to experiment swap tomato sauce with pesto. (and use it to make thin layers between the cheesy ones.
I might do so some time.