Cuban Sandwich Mac and Cheese Lasagna

Cuban Sandwich Mac and Cheese Lasagna? That is a real mouthful! Did you read that title right? Yep! Let’s break it down. Creamy cheesy sauce smothered over noodles. Not any noodles though, lasagna noodles! Swimming in between all the noodles are the ingredients of a Cubano Sandwich- pork, ham, pickles, and swiss cheese. Where’s the mustard you ask? Inside the creamy bechamel sauce!

Why not make Cubano mac and cheese? Why lasagna?

I wanted to layer the mac and cheese to emulate the pressed sandwich. I was going to leave the lasagna part out of the title, but about 5 people told me I’m not allowed to use lasagna noodles in a mac and cheese, I had to call it lasagna. This was hard to name! I could have also called it cubanza, but now I’m just talking nonsense. In other news, THIS WAS SOOO GOOD!

Making the Bechamel

Start with some butter and onions in a pan. Then add flour and whisk it aggressively to make sure there’s no lumps. Slowly stir in the milk and cook it until it thickens. You will see it thickening up as it comes to a simmer but it won’t achieve it’s full viscosity until it simmers for about 3 minutes. Make sure to stir often and be touching the bottom of the pan so it doesn’t stick and burn!

If you want to know more about making bechamel, check out this recipe.

After it cools for a few minutes, stir in the mustard. I used 3 types of mustard but this is not needed. If you only want one, that would be fine! I had all these mustards around so I wanted a mix. Yellow and dijon for the flavor, then the whole grain for the cool texture. I wanted this to visually look like mustard sauce when you saw the finished Cuban sandwich mac and cheese lasagna, and the whole grain made it clear.

This is a total of 1/4 cup mustard. In my opinion the whole grain is less potent, so if you are using a blend of yellow and dijon, I would use a total of 3 tablespoons instead.

You can see the grain in the sauce which is what I was going for!

Layer the Cuban Sandwich Mac and Cheese Lasagna

Start with some sauce, then add the first layer of noodles. Then a full layer of ham, some pork, and some pickles. Next add on the sauce and the cheeses. Then the noodles and repeat! After the top pasta layer add more sauce and cheese, but no meat or pickles.

I ended up doing a total of 4 layers of pasta and 3 layers of fillings.

Bake the Cuban Sandwich Mac and Cheese Lasagna

Preheat the oven to 350 and bake for about a half hour! If you want to put this into the fridge first and bake it in a day or two, you need to bake it about 45 minutes instead, maybe even longer!

You can tell the Cuban sandwich mac and cheese lasagna is done when it is bubbling on the edges and slightly brown on the top.

Pickley, mustardy, cheesey, porky, hammy, over the top awesome. The Cuban sandwich mac and cheese lasagna is a super decadent meal. The layering is so good and the combo of flavors is perfect! It screams Cubano, but also feels like eating mac and cheese.

LOOK AT THE LAYERS

Twists on this recipe

This would be awesome as a Cuban sandwich mac and cheese if you don’t want to do the layering for the lasagna. Just mix all the ingredients including the pasta in a baking dish and cook it! You would need to chop up the pickles and the ham though.

I also think you could make any sandwich into a lasagna. Reuben lasagna? YES! How about Italian Sub lasagna? Wait, no one steal this idea I am going to make it.

If you love fun twists on lasagna, check out my Lasagna Meatloaf, or Pierogi Lasagna!