I am telling you, you won't even miss the cheese. This recipe turned out so divine. This noodle-free, gluten-free, veggie-packed lasagna is one of my favorite creations yet! I want to make it again, when I have company, so I can WOW them. This recipe also is made with a home made cashew ricotta, that tastes like cheese. The layers in this lasagna include all organic zucchini cut mandolin style, spinach, spaghetti squash, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, garlic, marinara and cashew ricotta. Like traditional lasagna, this one is even better the next day after all the flavors settle in together. It reheats in the oven just fine. The prep time is 2 hours and it has 8-9 servings.
Tools:
- 2.75 quart/11 cup glass casserole dish (9.5x7.5")
- Mandolin slicer (optional, you can slice veggies thin, but it doesn't work as well as a mandolin.)
- Blender (For dairy-free ricotta cheese)
Ingredients:
- All Organic
- 2 zucchinis
- 1 baked sweet potato
- 1/2 baked spaghetti squash
- 3 garlic cloves minced
- baby tomatoes
- jar of spaghetti sauce
- spinach
- Sprinkle of nutritional yeast (optional)
Bake the sweet potato and the spaghetti squash in the oven for 1 hour. In the mean time get your prepping going. Slicing the zucchini's with your mandolin, mincing your garlic,
slicing the baby tomatoes. When the sweet potato and spaghetti squash are done you may need to cool it before handling. I just hold them with a towel and slice in half. You can scoop the sweet potato out with a spoon, and you can remove the seeds of the spaghetti squash with a fork. Start your layers as follows. Pour a dab of spaghetti sauce on the bottom of the tray and spread it across. Add a layer of zucchini, then spinach, scoop out the sweet potato and add little bits across the layers, with a fork add layers of the spaghetti squash and scoop out the cashew ricotta and spread it around, or pour it if you didn't chill it first (see directions for the ricotta below). Add the minced garlic in different spots and the baby tomatoes. Repeat until all of the ingredients are used. Finish the top with marinara and cover with tinfoil. Bake at 350 degrees for one hour. At 50 minutes, remove the tinfoil and let bake un-covered for the last 10 minutes. Sprinkle with nutritional yeast to give it a parmesan flavor and look.
For the cashew ricotta:
- 1 1/2 cups raw cashews, soaked
- 1/2 cup water
- juice of 1 large lemon or 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
- 1 – 2 tablespoons nutritional yeast, optional
- 1 garlic clove
- dash of onion powder
- Himalayan sea salt & cracked pepper, to taste
Soak the cashews for at least 2 hours in a jar of water, covering the cashews about 2 – 3 inches of water as they will swell up.
Drain cashews and place all remaining ingredients into a blender or food processor, process until creamy stopping to scrape down the sides every few minutes. Taste for flavors adding any additional ingredients. Some like a salty ricotta so feel free to add as much salt as you want.
Store in an air tight container in the refrigerator for an hour or two, this will stiffen the mixture a bit. You can also prepare your dish straight away without refrigeration if needed. Refrigeration will thicken the mixture a bit. If it becomes too thick, add a tad of water and mix well.
Makes approx. 2 cups. Stores in refrigerator for up to a week.
This is a meal even your teenager will eat. Now go get cooking!
This is a meal even your teenager will eat. Now go get cooking!