Ortega Lasagna Grande Dinner Kit Review

On the box, this thing looks great. Basically the Ortega Lasagna Grande Dinner Kit is a Mexican lasagna. How could it not be good? I love lasagna, and I love tacos, and enchiladas, and this is basically like combing all three of those. To make it even better, the whole kit together was just under $2.00. All I had to do was add ground beef, or actually ground chuck in my case.

I feed a husband who is 6'5", a 16-year-old son who is 6'3", and an almost 13-year-old daughter who is already taller than I am. Because of that, I stretch everything with two pounds of ground chuck. I either double everything, or in the case of tacos, I double the chuck, but only use one packet of taco seasoning. Believe it or not, it's not too weak.

This kit comes with a packet of taco seasoning mix, a packet of enchilada sauce, a packet of nacho cheese sauce, a packet of mozzarella cheese sauce, and tortillas. Hungry yet? I was, until I realized it only came with four tortillas. Four SMALL tortillas. I had planned on having extra meat made up that I would just serve on the side with some extra tortillas, and I knew I'd really have to rely on that now.

I layered everything together, topped it with a little additional cheese and some green onions and cooked it. I'll add in here that it was one of those really hot and humid days here in Chicago, and I did not want to bake it in my oven. Since I cooked the ground chuck in my electric skillet, I went ahead and tried to bake this lasagna creation in there instead. I had it up a little too high so the bottom got a little crispy, yet it did work.

I regret that I didn't snap a picture before we devoured this to fully explain how small it was. Because that picture there on the box doesn't even come close to being representative of the real finished product. Just picture cutting a standard-sized tortilla into eight pieces, and now stack that up times four. That was our dinner. Thankfully I had that leftover taco filling, and a side of rice. While I double my meat, I don't double other Mexican-type kits. It's usually enough. But this thing didn't even come close. I do double Hamburger Helper, but that's because it's cheaper, and I buy it on sale or buy the generic ones.

The problem I am encountering, though, is that my family really liked it. But I don't want to add another $2.00 onto my total cost, as that would make it the most expensive weekday meal. And frankly, Wednesdays at our local pizza joint are Half Price Wednesdays. A take out pizza would be cheaper than that. Instead, I'll be trying to figure out how I can build this into a 9 x 13 pan, at a lower cost. I might not have all the different flavors of this, but I'll keep working on it.