I've had lasagna pasta in my cupboard for a while and today I realized I had a potato and carrots so off I went to make a creamy cheese sauce with ma root veggies! You can use this sauce as the base and also add a tomato sauce and of course, your favorite vegan cheese.
This is my second recipe of the day (I made blueberry banana bread first and chocolate last) so I was on a roll. This dish is super hardy but it's made with so many nutritious ingredients that it's hard to believe it's all good for you. Feel free to add some of your favorite vegan cheese. I love some of the store bought artisan cheeses out there so feel free to experiment with new cheeses.
You can also make your own vegan ricotta and add a few scoops to the lasagna. Here is my ricotta recipe:
1/2 block of silken tofu (you can use firm too)
Juice from 1/2 of a big lemon
3 tbsp of nutritional yeast
2 tsp of sea salt
2 tbsp of non dairy milk
Put everything in your food processor and blend. Add the milk to keep it going. Then taste. Add more lemon juice or sea salt if needed. If you want it to be cheesier, add more nutritional yeast. Set the ricotta aside. You can use 1/2 cup of soaked cashews instead of the tofu.
If you are used to super cheesy lasagna, mix in the ricotta and your favorite vegan cheese. Vegan cheese products have come a long way as far as taste and texture and so many are just like dairy cheese. Alot of us transitioning or who have transitioned to veganism may have had problems giving up cheese-I am Italian and it was such a huge part of my upbringing-but the vegan versions are great replacements.
Sauce:
1 cup of unsweetened soy milk
1 small white potato peeled and chopped
2 small carrots, chopped
2 tsp of turmeric
2 tsp of cumin
2 tsp of sea salt
2 tsp of pepper
2 tbsp of nutritional yeast or vegan parm cheese
2 tbsp of olive oil
2 cloves of garlic
Lasagna:
8-10 sheets of lasagna pasta
5 cherry tomatoes, cut in half
A few kale leaves
1 small orange pepper, chopped
1/4 cup of breadcrumbs
Chop and steam your potato until you can get a fork through it. Boil water and cook the lasagna pasta. Put the sauce ingredients in your food processor and process until a thick sauce forms. Spray a glass casserole dish with oil and put a little sauce on the bottom of the dish. Cover the bottom of the dish with lasagna pasta. Pour some sauce on top of the pasta then add some veggies (kale, peppers, tomatoes) on top of the sauce. Keep layering pasta, sauce, veggies until all is used up. Sprinkle breadcrumbs on top of the lasagna and add some more sea salt and maybe another garlic clove. Cover with aluminum foil.
You don't have to boil the pasta until it's super soft because you are also putting the pasta in the oven for 45 minutes. Sometimes you don't even have to cook the lasagna pasta at all; it will cook in the oven. So, in other words, you don't need to boil the pasta for a long time.
Drizzle more olive oil on the lasagna when it's out of the oven if you need it to be a little more moist. You can also splash a little more soy milk on it. Or make sure your sauce is very liquidy.
