In my house, the dinners that are made the most are ones that are easy to make, fresh, and prep-able ahead of time. When we run after work, by the time both of us are home and done with our workouts, we only have about 45 minutes (or less let’s be honest) to dedicate to making dinner before it’s 7:30 PM. By then, Mike is laying on the floor crying that he’s starving. This lasagna recipe is traditional and very very simple!
I’m going to be honest – I don’t like Italian food or pasta dishes.
Mike is always requesting pasta meals for dinner, and I always end up modifying mine because I just don’t like pasta. Italian foods tend to upset my stomach and, aside from pizza, there really isn’t any Italian dish I find myself craving. Weird? Probably. That said, I really like this lasagna, and I especially love it when we’re in the middle of a training cycle and have it to each when we get home from hard workouts.
If you’re looking for a lasagna recipe that’s experimental, this won’t be the one for you. This recipe is simple, traditional, and quick.
Why is this lasagna so good? Here are 5 reasons:
- It takes around 20 minutes to prep (45 minutes to cook).
- It’s vegetarian and meat lover approved. It’s really hard to get Mike to eat vegetarian alternatives but he approves of this!
- There are only 6 ingredients. 4 of those are ingredients we regularly have. I also pretty regularly mix it up. Some weeks I add something like carrot or beets and some weeks I keep it really simple.
- The cost of all my ingredients is less than $20.
- It can be made with fresh, whole foods. In this post, I used pre-made sauce, and the store was out of whole grain noodles, but you could make all the ingredients yourself if you chose!
So, to get started here’s what you’ll need, plus any spices you want to include:
I like to mix the mushrooms and any chopped veggies to the ricotta before assembling.
I use 15 sheets of pasta for my baking tray – 5 per layer, and layer the pasta, ricotta-mushroom mix, some sauce, and spinach in each of the 2 inner layers.
The top layer of the lasagna is more sauce and the mozzarella. I don’t put mozzarella in the middle layers because I think it’s cheesy enough without it.
Bake at 360 for 40-45 minutes, then take out and let cool for a few minutes before serving.
Give it a shot and let me know what you think! And guess what? It’s EVEN BETTER the left over the next day!
Make ahead veggie Lasagna
Cuisine: ItalianDifficulty: Easy8
servings20
minutes40
minutesIngredients
1 jar tomato sauce
1 package lasagna noodles
1 cup mozzarella cheese
1 small container of ricotta cheese
1/2 a bag of frozen spinach
2 cups of mushrooms
Any spices you like – Italian seasoning, pepper, and garlic powder are all good.
Directions
- Start the noodles in boiling water.
- Break up the mushrooms into small pieces (I buy them sliced and just break them in half), and mix them in with the ricotta.
- When the noodles are done, drain and start layering. I do 3 layers with 5 noodles per layer. On the inner layers spread a portion of the ricotta-mushroom mix, spinach, and sauce.
- On the top layer of noodles spread the rest of your sauce and your cheese.
- Bake for 40-45 minutes in the oven at 360 degrees until the cheese is melted and the noodles on the edges just start to harden.
- Take out of the oven and let cool before serving.
