Looking for a delicious hearty meal to serve your family tonight? This Vegetable Lasagna Recipe is quick, easy, and full of flavor! Best of all – you’ll have plenty of leftovers!
Vegetable Lasagna Recipe
Alright, let’s just get this out of the way before we get into the recipe: this is not a pretty meal. You know what I mean, it doesn’t photograph as beautifully as the White Chocolate Loaf, but I swear – it’s damn good. In fact, to quote my husband, “This is the best meal you’ve ever made!” While both my husband and I enjoy cooking, at the end of a busy day sometimes it’s the last thing I want to do. Some weeks are just hectic, and thinking about breakfast, lunch, and dinner meals just is the last priority. During these weeks, I tend to stick to easy casserole-style meals. I personally love casserole-style meals (like today’s Vegetable Lasagna Recipe) because they give you lots of leftovers to use for future meals.
My husband is a huge lasagna fan. We all have our favourite meals from our childhood, and his was definitely his mum’s lasagna – I’ve tried it, and I got to agree – she makes one damn good lasagna.
Anyways, during one of our usual pre-grocery shop talks (you know, where you plan out what to buy and what meals you want) he mentioned that he was craving lasagna – and as soon as he said it I got a craving for it, too. Like dang, that sounds fantastic!
While I love lasagna, it’s not always the healthiest meal which is why I decided to substitute the noodles with eggplant slices.
It just lightens the meal up a bit and makes it a little bit healthier.
One thing I love about this recipe is that it’s jam-packed with vegetables. While I used carrot, bell pepper, onion, and tomato, you can really use whatever you like.
In fact, my mum made another vegetable lasagna and she decided to swap out the eggplant noodles for thin slices of sweet potato and apparently that was delicious, too.
Neither my husband nor I are picky eaters. We pretty much will eat and try everything (seriously, I even ate a cricket in Mexico one time – it was cooked, but you guys – I ate a bug) but when we Jeremy suggested we make lasagna I think he meant the traditional style: real meat, real noodles. I had thought when I served him up some eggplant-noodles and soy-meat substitute that he would be less than enthused.
But, he completely surprised me. He loved the idea of the eggplant noodles, and he couldn’t even tell that the “meat” wasn’t real meat. I love that he is as into making meals healthier as I am.
If you’d like to take this vegetable lasagna recipe a step further to make it vegan then I recommend you look into vegan cheeses. There are lots of vegan cheese options out there now so this can easily be turned into a vegan dish.
Hearty Veggie Lasagna
Yield:
9 - 12
Looking for a delicious hearty meal to serve your family tonight? This lasagna is quick, easy, and full of flavor! Best of all - you'll have plenty of leftovers!
Ingredients
- 1 eggplant
- 1 bell pepper (I used half a red pepper, and half yellow)
- 1 carrot
- 1 onion
- Cherry Tomatoes (about a handful)
- Mushrooms (sliced - about a handful)
- 1 celery
- ricotta cheese - 1 full container
- shredded mozzarella and cheddar cheese
- Yves Italian Veggie Ground "Meat"
- 1 can of tomato sauce
- 1 can diced tomatoes
- 1 can of tomato paste
- olive oil
- Seasonings:
- - Nutmeg
- - Herbs de Provence
- - Pizza and Pasta Seasoning
- - Salt and Pepper
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350.
Eggplant "Noodles"
- Start by slicing your eggplant into 1 inch strips.
- Line baking tray with parchment paper
- Place eggplant onto the tray, drizzle with olive oil
- Cook for 20 minutes
- Remove from oven and pat eggplant dry using a cheese cloth. You want to remove the excess water.
- Allow to rest
Veggie Mixture:
- While your eggplant is cooking, chop veggies up (celery, bell pepper, mushrooms, tomatoes, carrot, onion)
- Sauté veggies with a bit of olive oil in a pan until they soften
- Remove from heat
Cheese + Meat Mixture
- Mix ricotta cheese, YVES Italian Ground "meat", can of tomato paste, can of diced tomatoes, nutmeg, salt and pepper together in a bowl
Time to Layer Lasagna:
- Need a 8x8 glass pan
- Start with a layer of tomato sauce
- Then layer eggplant slices
- Next layer cheese + meat mixture
- Then layer the veggies
- Add on a layer of mozza and cheddar cheese
- Repeat
- Now that you've layered up your lasagna, add on some salt and pepper, and place in the oven for 40 minutes.
- After 40 minutes is up, remove from oven and let sit for 5-10 minutes.
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