“Love your body” lasagna?
To qualify as a true “love your body lasagna”, it would need to:
- be delicious
- be chock full of phyto – nutrition (that means color, plants, fiber, and all their friends)
- be low on fat
In essence, it would have to have it all.
Look no further, here’s the recipe that meets all of these requirements. As it so happens, it was my Valentine’s Dinner recipe and had my honey swooning.
Talk about a recipe that fires on all cylinders!
This lasagna recipe is tightly based on the Raise-the-Roof Sweet Potato – Vegetable Lasagna from one of my new favorite cookbooks, Rip Esselstyn’s Engine 2 Diet. I say tightly-based as I only needed to make a few minor adjustments to the recipe due to what I had on hand; those adjustments are noted below with an asterisk*.
As a person who usually passes on recipes with more than 5 ingredients, this was surprisingly easy to put together and made enough for multiple meals. This recipe is free of all animal products and has no added fats or oils. And it has enough vegetables to easily top off your recommended daily veggie minimum.
Raise-the-Roof Sweet Potato – Vegetable Lasagna
- 1 onion, chopped
- 1 head of garlic, peeled and pressed (*I just crushed 6 cloves out of a jar)
- 8 oz. mushrooms, sliced
- 1 head broccoli, chopped
- 2 carrots, chopped
- 2 red bell peppers, seeded and chopped (*3 roasted red peppers from a jar, chopped)
- 1 can corn, rinsed and drained (*2 cups frozen corn)
- 1 package firm tofu (*I only had 1 cup on hand and actually you could leave this out, no problem)
- 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper (*eliminated)
- 1 tsp. oregano
- 1 tsp. basil
- 1 tsp rosemary
- 2 jars pasta sauce (* 1 1/2 jars of fat-free Trader Joe’s marinara sauce)
- 2 boxes whole grain lasagna noodles (*1 box was plenty)
- 16 oz. frozen spinach, coked and mashed (*1/2 bag fresh baby spinach)
- 2 sweet potatoes, cooked and mashed (*yams)
- 6 roma tomatoes, sliced thin (*didn’t have on hand, and eliminated – there was plenty of tomato with the sauce though in summer I’d put ’em on)
- 1 cup raw cashews, ground
Steam saute (that means in a little bit of water) the onion and garlic on high heat for 3 minutes in a pan. Add the mushrooms and the rest of the veggies, pop the lid on the pot and let them finish cooking to tender-crisp. (* I added 3 Tablespoons of Bragg’s aminos and a pinch of sea salt for flavor). Drain the tofu and crumble it into the vegetable mixture. Mix it all together with the spices.
Assembly
Cover the bottom of a 9 x 13 inch baking dish with a layer of sauce. Add a layer of noodles, and cover the noodles with more sauce. Spread the veggie mixture next. Cover with another layer of noodles and another dressing of sauce. Add the spinach, and cover with the mashed sweet potatoes.
You can add another layer of noodles and sauce, but I stopped here because my pan was overflowing!
I also assembled this several hours before cooking, which made it unnecessary to cook the noodles first. By the time I got around to cooking, they had hydrated from the sauce and veggies and were perfectly done upon cooking.
Cover the lasagna with a layer of thinly sliced roma tomatoes.
Bake at 400 degrees for 45 minutes. Then sprinkle it with the ground cashews, and return to the oven for 15 minutes. Let it sit 10 – 15 minutes before serving – if you can stand to wait!
Other than the mushrooms this sounds and looks delish!! is this ok for the booty camp eating? Is that a pic of yours? just wondered, as I thought you ended with the yams. (which I think is a great idea!)
I think I need to make this (but I won’t use the toms and I will use the sauce) as I am kinda getting tired of my veggie chili.
wow – permission to eat lasagna – I can’t wait!!
-Paym
@Paym: Paym, absolutely this is a Booty Camp dish and ain’t it great? You can just leave out the mushrooms or pinch hit with another veggie you like. This was great as a leftover, too!
Lani
Hey Lani,
If we are limiting our tofu, soybean, what could we sub for, or do you think it would turn out ok without it? Outside of that I like it.
Rhonda
@Rhonda: Rhonda, you could just leave it out and barely notice it. Or get creative with replacements, I can tell you are good at that!
Lani
Hi Lani,
This looks absolutely delicious! I heading out to the store today to get the ingredients to make this. This will make a great dish for dinner:)
@Susan Livengood: Susan, you must report in to tell how it comes out. It is very good and just gets better with time!
Lani
Leave out the tofu and use pureed white beans (cannellini would be perfect).
Naomi, what a great idea! Thanks! Do you season them in any way first?
You could add extra garlic and some chopped parsley to give the beans the ricotta look (I’m part Italian, and I ate TONS of ricotta laced food growing up – got the ricotta cheese thighs to show for it, lol – but it’s diminishing RAPIDLY following a plant powered lifestyle with plenty of potatoes and grains). Also, I would use fresh basil if it was available. A big handful of it. I LOVE fresh basil. In this recipe, I would not use the dried basil at all (personal preference, as I don’t care for the flavor of dried basil). Use a bit more oregano, and maybe even some thyme.
Thanks Naomi! Can’t wait to try it. Where else would you get creative with the white beans in this fashion? Let me know when you get a chance, thanks!