In northern Italy, traditional lasagna pasta dough used flour and eggs.
This egg-rich dough is associated especially with northern Italian fresh pasta, where cooks rolled it into thin sheets known as sfoglia. The eggs help bind the flour and give the dough a supple texture and warm yellow color. In Emilia-Romagna, skilled pasta makers called sfogline traditionally rolled the dough by hand until it was nearly paper-thin.
The contrast with southern Italy is important. Traditional southern pasta dough more often used semolina and water, reflecting the region’s durum-wheat farming and established dried-pasta traditions. These are broad regional patterns rather than absolute rules: cooks in every part of Italy use many variations today.
Green lasagna sheets are another northern specialty. In some recipes, spinach is mixed into the dough, producing the green pasta used in dishes such as lasagne alla bolognese. Once prepared, the sheets are layered with sauces and fillings, then baked.
Modern factory-made dried lasagna is usually based on durum-wheat semolina, so it may not match the fresh northern dough tradition exactly.