Lasagna has always been a mystery to me. Chili is that way for me too. There is an art to these classic dishes. It’s not a right or wrong thing, it’s just a matter of taste. Lasagna is a dish I have to put my game face on for. When I am finished assembling it and it’s bubbling away in the oven I always think to myself, “Well that wasn’t so bad, I don’t know what you were all worried about!” Then I get the lasagna out of the oven and it sucks and I’m like, “I just don’t get it. This is a flavorless pile of garbage and it cost a lot too!”
I think my sauce to cheese to noodle ratios have always been off. Too much cheese, not enough meaty sauce, and under cooked noodles. For this lasagna everything came together perfectly. I was able to serve it in neat squares and the noodles didn’t slide around squishing the meat sauce out forcing you to have a big bite of cheesy noodle with no meat. And then later you have to get out a spoon to eat all the sauce remaining on your plate.
I USED SAUCE FROM A JAR! Love me or hate me I’m OK with whatever. Believe it or not there are some great sauces that come in jars. I’m not afraid or ashamed to use them. I’m not going to worry about the health benefits either when I’m stuffing whole milk ricotta and mozzarella by the shovel-full into my mouth. A little extra sugar in my sauce is not my biggest concern. Although the choices are endless when it comes to jars of pasta sauce. You could probably get one that’s organic without sugar or salt. I think it’s sort of funny when people say they make their own sauce but their “homemade” sauce is made with tomatoes from a can. I guess that’s legal.
I don’t make my own noodles either! And I was a little worried about this because I hate the kind you have to boil. And where I live it is impossible to find fresh lasagna noodles. And on top of all that I have sworn off Barilla pasta (which I’ve always used until now). I ended up using American Beauty. They looked really weird out of their box and as soon as they came in contact with any moisture they began to curl. But their end result was remarkable. Their final texture was perfect. In fact, I always thought the Barilla noodles had an inconsistent gummy/dry texture. I chalked it up to the fact that no-boil lasagna noodles were sort of unnatural and you just get what you get. 
As you can see I accidentally burned the cheese on top. It looks worse than it is because I threw on the rest of my meat sauce before the cheese. So the cheese had a dark backdrop anyway. I was fine with the result because for some reason I love the flavor of burnt cheese among other things (e.g. popcorn and toast). I revised my recipe so that this will not happen to you. I never covered my lasagna up in the oven. So if you want yours to look like mine don’t cover it up. Otherwise follow the recipe which includes time both covered and uncovered. I assume that you would want the cheese to be at least slightly golden. Another thing I did, that you probably won’t do, is use antelope burger and sausage. Just use lean ground beef and you will get a similar result. I threw in a photo of the sauce I used. California Sun Dry makes a ton of fabulous products and they might even produce canned tomatoes in case you want to make “homemade” sauce:)
