Vegetarian lasagne
We all know that lasagne is a faff to make but the finished article is heavenly, right? Well I have at least done away with making a roux, plus this one uses fresh lasagne sheets so you don’t end up wrestling lasagne sheets that are all stuck together or ones that you used dry and they didn’t cook. This is jam-packed with veg so even though, like all lasagne, it’s not exactly a low energy dinner is does send masses of nutrients coursing around your body.
To my mind lasagne doesn’t come with garlic bread or chips but with a lovely fresh salad.
- Prep: 20 mins
- Cook: 25-30 mins
- Servings: 6
Ingredients
For the vegetable sauce layers
- Extra virgin olive oil
- 1 large red onion, chopped
- 2 courgettes, halved then sliced into lengths
- 2 handfuls of baby tomatoes halved
- 700g of meaty mushrooms such as chestnut mushrooms, sliced
- 2 tins of tomatoes, chopped
- 4 tablespoons of tomato puree
- 1 heaped tablespoon of mixed herbs
- Sea salt
For the white sauce
- 250g mascarpone
- 200g creme fraiche
- teaspoon of Dijon mustard
- Squeeze of fresh lemon
Optional extras
- 1 aubergine, topped, tailed and sliced into long strips
- 1 jar of cooked peppers
- 3 large handfuls of fresh spinach
Pasta and toppings
- 15-18 fresh lasagne sheets
- 125g buffalo mozzarella
- Handful of grated Cheddar cheese
Nuush clients: Please apply the portion sizes stated in your account and divide the recipe so that you make only as much you need.
Instructions
Watch me make it here.
Heat the oven to 170º or 160º fan.
In a large high-sided frying pan fry the onion until slightly soft, then add the tomatoes, herbs, sea salt and courgettes and continue to cook for a few mins before adding the mushrooms. Cook until the mushrooms soften, then add the tinned tomatoes and tomato purée. Taste for seasoning and add more salt if necessary.
Mean time, in a food processor or blender, combine the mascarpone, mustard, creme fraiche and lemon juice until it runs smooth. At the same time, if using, fry the aubergine slices in olive oil or put them in the air fryer (with olive oil) at 180º for a few minutes.
Now you are ready to start layering into a rectangular high-sided oven tray (about 40 x 26cm).
- Layer 1: tomato veg sauce
- Layer 2: spread 5-6 lasagne sheets with some of the white sauce mix and add those as a layer.
- Layer 3: the cooked aubergines
- Layer 4: tomato veg sauce.
- Layer 5: another one of lasagne sheets spread with sauce
- Layer 6: raw spinach.
- Layer 7: another of lasagne and white sauce
- Layer 8: the last of the tomato veg sauce,
- Layer 9: jarred peppers, if using.
- Layer 10: to finish it off tear the mozzarella into small pieces and scatter them over, and then the grated Cheddar.
Add a tin foil tent and bake covered for 25 mins and uncovered for a further 5 mins.
Nutrition Info
Courgettes
You might not put courgettes at the top of the ‘superfoods’ list but that would be a tragedy as they have a really broad range of nutrients even if not as massively stuffed with one or the other as something like broccoli.
Their top one is copper; copper is needed to make collagen, that vital thing that holds lots of bits of us together! It also helps to convert carbohydrates into energy, as well as incorporating iron into red blood cells. Copper is a co-factor for an enzyme called superoxide dismutase, which is one of the major antioxidant enzymes in your body – a co-factor means a kind of helper.
Courgettes are also an excellent source of manganese, which is great for bones and skin and again is a co-factor for that superoxide thing I mentioned above 🙂
And let’s not overlook their brilliant amount of fibre, essential if you want happy gut flora!
Tomatoes
Tomatoes are rich in lycopene which is a pokey antioxidant. Antioxidants are like bouncers at a night club, they go around finding stray electrons that are busy causing trouble in your body, and find them a love partner so they can both stay in and cuddle on the sofa.
Tomatoes are also a brilliant source of vitamin C, which supports skin and connective tissue health as well as immunity and iron absorption. The biotin in tomatoes is good for controlling blood sugar.
Aubergines
The beautiful purple skin of the aubergine is where so many of its phytonutrients lie. They’re in the skin to give the plant protection from the elements and pests and when you eat them they help to do the same for you.
Aubergines are rich in anthocyanin and a phytonutrient called Nasunin, which is a potent antioxidant to help protect cell membranes from damage.
Find your new natural
I never met a lasagne I didn’t like
Jim Davis
Portion Guidelines
Instead of living with the bore of weighing food, counting points or calories and tapping everything you eat into a phone you can use nature’s custom-designed tool – your hands!
