Veggie Lasagna Recipe

This might more accurately be titled How-to-use-up-leftover-veggies-lasagna because it’s what I make when I have bits and pieces of veggies in the crisper that need to be used before they go bad. It’s easy to make – although not fast, because once it’s prepped, it still needs to bake for an hour. This is another dish that I like to make in advance – maybe during a Sunday afternoon of prep – and stash in the fridge or freezer so I can throw it in the oven when I get home in the evenings.

Here’s how I made it this week. I started with a medium whole eggplant, which I sliced, salted, and left to drain for about 30 minutes on a layer of papertowel. (Salting the eggplant helps remove some of the excess liquid which both makes the eggplant more firm and helps remove some of the “bitter” flavor from the seeds.) Be sure to rinse the eggplant well before adding it to your recipe.

Chop the eggplant, add a chopped zucchini, 2 chopped cloves of garlic, 1 chopped medium onion, about 2 cups of chopped spinach, 10 oz of sliced mushrooms, and some of the tomatoes I not-canned a few days ago. (The eggs are for later.)

I sauted the eggplant, onion, zucchini, and garlic in some olive oil until the onions were translucent and the rest of the veggies were tender.

I added the spinach and stirred it around until it was just wilted.

Finally I added in a roasted red bell pepper and some of the tomatoes from the jar in the fridge – both chopped fine.

In the meanwhile, I whisked a large egg and then mixed it with 15 oz of ricotta cheese.

Then I assembled the whole thing starting with a thin coating of tomato sauce on the bottom of the casserole dish to keep the noodles from sticking

Then just layer things: noodles, veggies, ricotta mix, cheese, tomato sauce.

Add a 2nd layer and then finish off with a layer of noodles, sauce, and cheese. Top with a sprinkle of parmesan.

Cover the whole thing with foil and bake in a 375 F oven for 35-40 minutes. Then remove the foil and bake for a further 20 minutes or until the top is browned and bubbly.

This recipe calls for the lasagna to be assembled in a 9×13 baking dish which should make about 8 good sized servings but you can also do this in 2 8×8 square dishes, if you have a smaller family or are not so big on leftovers. The nice thing about doing 2 8×8 dishes is that you can bake one immediately and freeze one for later, or make one to keep and one to share, or just freeze both of them.

Also keep in mind that this recipe is MEANT to be fooled-around-with. Don’t feel that you’re limited to the ingredients I listed here. This is a dish that you use to get rid of extra veggies you have lying around. If you want to throw in a different kind of squash, or leave out the eggplant, or add in cabbage … go for it. It’s limited only by your taste and what you have in your kitchen.

(And although it’s incredibly geeky of me, I want to point out that when I photographed the piece of lasagna on the plate, it was still steaming and you can see it in the photo.)

When made with the ingredients above, the nutritional information is as follows (and should be about the same as long as you use veggies for the filling and not add meat):
Nutrition info (based on 8 servings from a 9×13 pan): Cals: 358. Fat: 17.5g. Sodium: 652mg. Carbs: 30.1g. Fiber: 5.9g. Sugar: 8.2g. Protein: 23.7g.