Veggie lasagne
It’s the time of year where we crave 2 things: comfort & nourishment.
We have both of those covered with this veggie-packed vegetarian lasagne. Create layers of your favourite veggies covered in a rich tomato & mushroom mix, under layers of bechamel & fresh pasta.
We invite you to use this recipe as a guide and encourage you to select your favourite veggies and combos to create a version of this recipe that is uniquely yours.
What you will need is a bechamel, no matter what. If you’re tweaking the recipe to be completely vegan-friendly, you will be able to switch out the following bechamel recipe for some delicious Hello Friend Cheese Sauce.
There are 3 main components to this dish:
Bechamel sauce
Tomato & mushroom sauce
Thinly sliced veggies that will form your layers
Bechamel ingredients:
- 1 litre of full cream milk
- Half a cup of plain flour
- 100grams of unsalted butter
- 1-2 cups of grated cheddar cheese
Bechamel method:
Melt the butter in a large pot over medium heat. Then add the flour. Gently stir the mixture with a whisk until it forms a roux, or lightens in colours and resembles a nice, thick dough.
From there you want to add in the milk (ideally you’ve prewarmed the milk in a separate saucepan but it will still work if it’s cool). Whisk in around a cup of milk at a time until you have added all of it. Continue to whisk the entire time to prevent lumps forming. Add in your desired amount of cheese and set aside.
Tomato & Mushroom Sauce ingredients:
Here’s what we used but again, get creative with it! This is a great opportunity to use up any bits and pieces of tomato paste, random veggies, sauces, relishes, sundried tomatoes, chutneys, you name it!
- Around 15 button mushrooms
- A can of chopped tomatoes
- 2 jars of Don Antonio Tomato Sugo
- 1 brown onion
- 5 heirloom tomatoes
- Butter
Tomato & Mushroom Sauce method:
Dice and sweat your onion in a large frying pan with some butter.
Chop mushrooms into small pieces or cubes and fry off in a large frying pan with the onion. You’ll need to add a bit of butter to keep the mushrooms happy – turn up the heat!
Add in all your sauces/jars/condiments and little bits and pieces
Set aside
All the other ingredients:
- 1 eggplant
- 1 sweet potato
- 2 zucchinis
- Half a butternut pumpkin
- Lasagne sheets
- Grated cheese
Before you commence the layering, you want to finely slice (ideally with a mandolin) the veggies. We used sweet potatoes, butternut pumpkin, eggplant & zucchini.
Grab a lasagne dish and drizzle a bit of oil on the bottom. Layer the first layer of veggies on the bottom, followed by the second layer. We placed pumpkin on the bottom followed by zucchini.
Pour half of your tomato and mushroom sauce over the first 2 layers of veggies and cover in a single layer of lasagna sheets. Now pour over half of your bechamel.
Proceed to add 2 more layers of veggies, we used eggplant followed by sweet potato. Now pour the remaining tomato and mushroom sauce over followed by another layer of lasagne sheet. Pour the remaining bechamel over the pasta sheet. Sprinkle some finely chopped cauliflower on top, followed by a generous layer of grated cheese.
The trick to getting all of the veggies cooked thoroughly will be to cook it low and slow. We cooked ours for 2 hours at 160 degrees celsius. Some ovens might be a little faster. To test it’s ready, the best way is to simply slice a small section with a knife. The knife should glide smoothly through the lasagne, if you get resistance or it feels a little “crunchy” pop it in for another 20-30 minutes and try again.
