It comes prepped in the cooler, frozen, or you can buy all the ingredients and make Fraboni's lasagna from scratch.
It’s too cold to go out and you’re too tired to cook or you just don’t feel like it — that’s when the freezer is your friend. Frozen food does not have to come from Trader Joe’s or Stouffer’s. It can be local, too. Fraboni’s Italian Specialties and Delicatessen, 108 Owen Road in Monona, makes a dynamite lasagna you can buy from the cooler or frozen. I don’t even bother to try to make lasagna any more; it’s just not worth the trouble.
Bennett Fraboni is in the company kitchen making sausage when I call to ask about the secret to Fraboni’s lasagna. “Most lasagna is made with ground beef,” Fraboni says. “Ours, the meat is 100 percent Italian sausage we make right here.” The recipe comes from his grandfather, Angelo. And it’s not that much of a secret; “If you’re feeling ambitious, we sell all the ingredients you need to make it right here,” says Fraboni.
Other than the use of the crumbled Italian sausage, the lasagna is standard, with layers of meat alternating with layers of cheese (ricotta, parmesan, and a pizza blend of mozzarella, provolone and “a little bit of Swiss”).
I’ve never seen it in the cooler, but Fraboni says the deli also makes a vegetarian lasagna with a mix of such vegetables as spinach, carrots, cauliflower, zucchini and broccoli. It’s so popular, there’s a waiting list: “We call you when we have a batch made,” he explains, “and set it aside. We don’t make it every week because it’s pretty labor intensive.”
