Fully Loaded Vegan Lasagna

This fully loaded vegan lasagna is a plant-based dish full of hearty, sautéd vegetables and a tofu ricotta cheese that everyone will love - even meat-eaters! 

My lasagna quest started at Aldi with a box of lentil noodles - they sounded interesting and I wanted to give them a try and honestly, I couldn’t remember the last time I made lasagna. As it turns out I’ve never made lasagna for Dan so it’s been about 17 years - yikes. In fairness, he made a raw lasagna for me once but forgot to rinse the spinach and it was so salty that we ended up tossing it. Later we took a raw food cooking class and got the recipe but for some reason, we never got around to making it. 

Our harvest is pretty much bottled, I made tomato sauce, jam and sun-dried tomatoes, zucchini fritters, and sauerkraut. We have butternut and acorn squash, fingerling potatoes, and kale - lots of kale in the fridge/pantry ready to be used. Last weekend I cleaned out the garden and flower beds and planted next year’s garlic - the cycle continues. We’ll definitely make some changes to the garden next year and move the peppers to the front where they get more sun - hopefully that will help them ripen. 

One of the reasons I don’t make lasagna is that it has all that cheese, which makes me super sick, and the vegan cheese - well let’s just say it doesn’t do much for me. It doesn’t really melt and the taste is - blah. And for those of you ready to tell me to try X, Y, or Z brand, believe me, I’ve tried it and didn’t like it. 

This lasagna took some prep but I cut down the time by using the tomato sauce I made a month or so ago and I used oven-ready noodles - there were still a lot of dishes - but hey dishes are not my job. I added some Field Roast Italian vegan sausages to the veggie mix and it really hit the spot. 

Ingredients:

Vegan Ricotta Cheese

16 ounces extra-firm tofu

1.5 tablespoons roasted garlic hummus

1 cup sautéed kale

1 tablespoon nutritional yeast

1/2 lemon, juiced

1/4 teaspoon salt

Lasagna

7 - 8 lasagna noodles, you can use pre-cooked noodles

4 cups marinara sauce

1 cup onion, diced

1 zucchini, cut into quarters and chopped

1 red pepper - chopped

1 green pepper - chopped

2 field roast Italian sausages (vegan) - thinly sliced 

1/4 cup fresh basil, chopped

1 bay leaf

olive oil

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Bring a large saucepan with tomato sauce, basil, and bay leaf to a boil, then simmer while you prep the other ingredients.

Prep the rest of the ingredients and set aside.

Vegan Ricotta Cheese

Gently mix tofu, hummus, kale, nutritional yeast, salt, and lemon juice with your hands or a spatula until semi-smooth and resembles ricotta cheese.

Vegan Lasagna

Heat a large skillet with 1 1/2 tbsps of olive oil on medium-high heat. Sauté zucchini, peppers, vegan sausages, and onions with salt and pepper to taste for 4-6 minutes until tender and starting to brown. 

Cook the noodles until just al dente and set aside, laying flat in one layer. Skip this step if you are using pre-cooked noodles.

Assemble the Lasagna

Remove the bay leaf from the marinara sauce and spread about 1 1/2 cups in the bottom of a 9×9 inch baking dish. Top with 2 1/2 noodles (I sliced one in half lengthwise to cover the extra space). Then add a generous amount of ricotta, vegetables, and sauce, top with another layer of noodles, ricotta, vegetables, and sauce. Add one more layer of noodles and finish with a generous amount of sauce. You can top it with fresh chopped basil for extra flavor!

Cover lasagna with foil and bake for @ 40 minutes.

Tonight we had leftovers with a green salad - it was delicious!

Enjoy!