Protein Packed Vegetarian Lasagna

Lasagna is one of my favorite childhood foods.  On a frigid, dark Sunday night, I would come in from playing in the woods all day to the smell of lovely lasagna.  The fresh aroma of garlic, basil and hearty tomato sauce warms up the even the coldest of winter evenings.

My mother had a busy work week, so she made a lot of quick and easy recipes during the week, but on a Sunday she would have a little more time to spend on dinner.  She loved making lasagna on this day because we could have a comforting family dinner and it makes delicious leftovers for the busy week to come.

As comforting as it is, lasagna can be quite an unhealthy dish.  This recipe keeps all of the comfort and heartiness of lasagna, but cuts down on the cholesterol and saturated fat. Now you can eat lasagne and feel good about it.  Even though this dish is vegetarian, it still packs a protein punch because of the two types of legumes we use.

Instead of ground beef, we veganize the meat sauce with lentils.  I love using lentils as a substitute for ground beef. You can use them in any instance you have ground beef.  Cook them up on the stove and flavor them like you would ground beef. Add in some garlic, carmelized onions, salt and pepper and you can’t go wrong.

One cup of cooked lentils provides ninety percent of your daily folate, thirty six percent of your daily protein and thirty seven percent of your daily iron.  It’s also packed with copper, manganese, zinc and vitamin B1.

I was wrapping my head around how to make a dairy-free ricotta cheese.  I saw quite a bit of recipes that use tofu. I didn’t have any tofu on hand, but I always have beans stocked in my pantry.  I used cannellini beans to make a creamy, velvety ricotta cheese base substitute.

You could also use any sort of white bean like great northern beans or chickpeas. The beans lend themselves well to soaking up a lot of flavor.

I then made an easy pesto sauce and added it to the cannellini ricotta cheese.  This makes the color an interesting, minty green but the taste insanely delicious.

One cup of cooked cannellini beans provides fifteen grams of protein and are rich in B vitamins (including B12), iron, potassium and zinc.

With the combination of lentils and cannellini beans, you have yourself quite a power punch of protein, essential minerals and fiber in this dish.

I didn’t include shredded cheese in this recipe, but if you would like to add that, the dairy-free brand that I love is “Follow your heart”.  I love using their smoked gouda flavor and then just shredding it up by hand. If you’re ready for a healthy version of a comfort food classic, grab a baking dish and let’s get started!

Step One – cook pasta

Bring a pot of water to a boil and cook the lasagne noodles.  Make sure not to over cook. Rinse with cold water and set aside until ready to layer lasagne.  Sprinkle with a little olive oil to prevent noodles from sticking.

Step Two  – cook lentils and add sauce

Rinse and place lentils in a pan.  Cover with water and cook until tender.  About 20 minutes. Once lentils are cooked, add a jar of pasta sauce to lentils.  Add ½ cup of water if needed.

Step Three – make pesto

Place garlic, nutritional yeast, olive oil, salt and lemon juice in blender or food processor and roughly blend

Step Four – add beans to pesto to make ricotta

After the pesto base is blended, add the cannellini beans to the pesto mixture and blend until smooth.  Add in dairy-free unsweetened milk or water to smooth out if needed

Step Five – first layer – noodles and ricotta

Gather up all your ingredients that you’re going to layer: Lasagne noodles, pesto ricotta and lentil sauce.  Put a small layer of sauce on the bottom of the pan. Place four overlapping noodles over the sauce. Gently spread ricotta over the first noodle layer

Step Six – second layer – noodles and sauce

Add four overlapping noodles over the ricotta then add a layer of lentil sauce

Step Seven – third layer – noodles and ricotta

Add four overlapping noodles over the lentil sauce, then spread a layer of ricotta over the noodles

Step Eight – last layer – noodles and sauce

Add four overlapping noodles over ricotta sauce then spread last layer of lentil sauce over the noodles.  Sprinkle nutritional yeast on top

Step Nine – cover and cook

Cover with tin foil and place in a preheated oven at 350 degrees for 25 minutes.

Step Ten – uncover and finish cooking

After 25 minutes, uncover the lasagne and cook for another 20 minutes.

If you’re not a fan of lentils, you can also try using two cans of black beans in the sauce instead or you can omit the beans in the sauce completely if you don’t want as many beans in the dish.

This is  great for a family dinner on the weekend when you have a little more time in the kitchen.  This is also perfect for a small dinner party. You can easily whip up a salad and garlic bread and have a delicious feast for friends.

If you have any leftovers, this lasagna freezes perfectly.  You can even double this recipe and freeze it before you cook it.  Just take it out of the freezer on a busy week and pop it in the oven for an hour.

Enjoy!