Five Veggie Lasagne
I love lasagne
And there are so many different ways to make it
This is my current favourite…
Layered eggplant slices with a sauce of mushrooms, pumpkin and lentils.
Topped with a quick and easy blend of ricotta, feta, spinach and Parmesan which, when baked, is just delicious
I made this lasagne in honour of National Nutrition Week whose aim is to encourage everyone to eat more veggies.
And when veggies taste this good it’s not that hard to eat a lot of them!
This will definitely help us reach our 5 serves every day 🙂
Lasagne is a great meal to make on the weekend so you can have some ‘instant’ dinners during the week.
Trust me, you will be ever so grateful you made the effort
As during your time-poor week, all you will need to do is heat up the lasagne and quickly throw together a salad to go with it (like my delicious kale slaw). Yum.
Plus lasagne ALWAYS tastes better the next day!
Tasty, delicious and incredibly filling. This is well worth trying
Enjoy
- 2 eggplants (700 grams total), sliced
- salt
- 3-4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
- 1 large brown onion, diced
- 2 cloves garlic, crushed
- 4 portabello mushrooms (250 grams), sliced
- 2-3 cups (400 grams) diced pumpkin (2 cm squares, skin on)
- a generous ½ cup red wine
- 1½ cups cooked (or a 400 gram tin, drained) brown lentils
- 500 gram jar pasta sauce
- ⅓ cup homemade pesto, or ½ cup fresh basil leaves, roughly chopped
- 250 grams ricotta
- 50 grams feta
- 250 grams frozen spinach, defrosted
- ½ cup milk
- ¼ cup freshly grated Parmesan
- Sprinkle salt over eggplant slices and set aside
- Heat a large pan over medium heat
- When hot, add about 1 tablespoon of the oil and the onion and cook for 4-5 minutes, until the onion softens and starts to brown
- Add garlic and mushrooms and sautee for 4-5 minutes
- Add pumpkin and sautee for another 2-3 minutes
- 'Deglaze' pan with red wine, then add lentils and pasta sauce
- Half fill the jar of pasta sauce with water, swish around, then pour into pan
- Bring to the boil, then turn down to simmer for around 10 minutes, or until the pumpkin is soft
- Turn the heat off and add pesto or basil leaves.
- Taste and add a little salt if necessary, then set aside
- Rinse salt off the slices of eggplant and pat dry on paper towel
- Heat a fry pan over medium heat. When hot add some oil and cook the slices of eggplant, a few at a time, until lightly browned on both sides
- Remove from pan onto a tray lined with absorbent paper towel
- Repeat with remaining slices.
- Place ricotta, feta, spinach and milk in the bowl of a food processor and blend until smooth. Set aside
- To construct lasagne -
- Heat oven to 220 degrees
- Place ⅓ of the eggplant slices on the bottom of the dish
- Top with ½ of the tomato and lentil sauce
- Cover with another ⅓ of eggplant and top that with remaining tomato and lentil sauce
- Cover the top with the remaining eggplant, spread the ricotta and spinach mix evenly over the top and sprinkle with parmesan cheese
- Bake for 30 minutes or until golden on top
- Remove from oven and allow to rest for 10 minutes before slicing
- Serve with salad
This recipe can be done in sections. The eggplant can be sliced and cooked one day, then the filling and topping made the following day
This lasagne keeps in the fridge for up to 4 days or can be frozen for up to 1 month
For a vegan version, replace ricotta and feta with vegan white sauce that you add nutritional yeast to. Option to also add vegan cheese
Step by step how to make this 5-veg lasagne
make filling, topping and cook eggplant slices
layer eggplant slices with tomato and lentil filling
spread with ricotta topping
sprinkle with freshly grated parmesan cheese
wholla!
inspired by this lasagne recipe
