When I was a freshman in college, the cafeteria in the student union building served the most magnificent garden lasagna.
The cafeteria was shut down during a renovation of the building, and it reopened as a fast food taco place.
Or something.
I don't exactly remember.
The point is that I love vegetable lasagna. I don't care what you call it; I love lasagna with vegetables stuck into the layers.
Depending on what veggies I have on hand, I may substitute different kinds of vegetables for the carrots or squash. In my personal opinion, the more veggies, the better!
Recipe
Garden Lasagna Recipe
Ingredients
- 2 cups onion chopped
- 4 garlic cloves pressed with a garlic press
- 2 teaspoons olive oil divided
- 2 cups zucchini chopped
- 2 cups yellow squash chopped
- 2 cups carrots thinly sliced or shredded carrots from the salad bar if you're in a pinch
- 2 cups broccoli chopped
- 1 teaspoon salt
- ½ cup flour
- 3 ½ cups 1% milk
- 1 cup Parmesan cheese shredded, divided
- ¼ teaspoon black pepper
- dash nutmeg
- 10 ounces chopped spinach frozen, thawed, and drained
- 32 ounces spaghetti sauce
- 1 ½ cups low-fat cottage cheese
- 2 cups low-fat mozzarella cheese shredded, divided
- 12 no-boil lasagna noodles divided
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375.
- Heat a large pot over medium-high heat. Coat with cooking spray. Sauté onion 4 minutes or until lightly browned. Add garlic, sauté 1 minute. Spoon onion mixture into a large bowl.
- Add 1 teaspoon olive oil to the same pot. Add zucchini and yellow squash, sauté 4 minutes or until tender and beginning to brown. Add to onion mixture in the bowl.
- Add another teaspoon olive oil to pot. Add carrot, sauté 4 minutes. Add broccoli to the carrot, sauté 4 minutes, or until crisp-tender. Add to onion mixture in the bowl.
- Sprinkle vegetables with salt and toss to mix well.
- Place flour in a medium saucepan. Gradually add milk, stirring with a whisk until well blended. (This is called a roux, pronounced "rue.") Bring to a boil over medium heat, cook 2 minutes or until thick, stirring constantly. Remove from heat.
- Add ½ cup Parmesan cheese, remaining ½ teaspoon salt, pepper, and nutmeg to the roux. Stir until smooth.
- Add spinach and spaghetti sauce to milk mixture. Stir until well blended.
- Combine cottage cheese and 1 ½ cups mozzarella, stir well. Spread ½ cup spinach mixture in the bottom of a 9x13 baking dish coated with cooking spray. Arrange 4 noodles over spinach mixture, top with half of cottage cheese mixture (about 1 ½ cups), half of the vegetable mixture (about 2 ½ cups), and 1 cup of spinach mixture.
- Repeat layers, ending with spinach mixture.
- Sprinkle with remaining ½ cup Parmesan and remaining ½ cup mozzarella cheese.
- Cover and bake at 375 for 20 minutes. Uncover and bake an additional 20 minutes or until cheese is bubbly and top is just beginning to brown.
- Let stand 10 minutes before serving.
Notes
1/12 of the finished lasagna has about 275 calories and 8.5 grams of fat.
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Kahuna75 says
Looks like a really good recipe- I always hate when someone serves a veggie lasagna and it is watery- prepping the veggies first is always key- though I usually stick to making my meatball and hot sausage laden lasagna- thanks for posting this
Jaime Bonk Haase says
I totally remember that lasagna, it was so good, and they had the best salad bar there too before they redid it. Although I have to admit I ate at the taco place every day, yummy taco salads. Thanks for the receipe, I'll have to try it.
FeelsLikeHomeBlog says
You know what I did? I alternated between the taco salads and the Panda Express. I'd skip breakfast so that I had enough points to eat that for lunch. How sad is that? 🙂
Jane says
This looks and sounds wonderful! I copied the recipe, and I'm going to try it soon. Thanks for sharing it!
Jane
ButterYum says
I'm so eager for garden season to arrive, especially today when the kids are all home from school because of the snow and ice.
🙂
ButterYum
Self Sagacity says
Hi! Another great vegetable recipe! It is fantastic that we ae getting more vegetable recipes. I will try this, it looks yummy.
FeelsLikeHomeBlog says
Me, too. I'm so over winter already!
Anita@theycallmejammi says
Sounds and looks yummy. Thanks for the recipe.
Geri@heartnsoulcooking says
GREAT!!! recipe using veggie.
Geri
Cathy says
That looks and sounds delicious!
At least it looks like your college cafeteria served appetizing meals...can't say the same for mine. 😛
Carol says
Tara, your recipe looked so yummy I had to try it yesterday. And it is!! It took a lot longer than I expected to put it all together (just under 3 hrs, start to finish), so I'm glad it was my middle of the day, cooking for the sake of cooking project, and no hungry bodies were waiting for me. It was fun!
My notes: I left out the nutmeg (don't care for it) and made 4 layers instead of 3 because that's how the noodles fit in my pan. Oh, and you might add "1/2 tsp salt" to the instructions in #5... it didn't cause me any trouble because I overlooked the salt until #7 anyway. And I could safely wait until #9 is underway to fire up the oven, but maybe I'm slow!
Thanks for a great recipe. I'll gladly eat this all week!
FeelsLikeHomeBlog says
I'm so glad you liked it! 🙂 And thanks for the tips, Carol. It always helps to get someone else's perspective. You're talking to the woman whose from scratch lasagna experiment last year took 13 hours. I don't judge anyone's kitchen speed!
Cathy says
That looks and sounds delicious!
At least it looks like your college cafeteria served appetizing meals...can't say the same for mine. 😛
Carol says
Tara, your recipe looked so yummy I had to try it yesterday. And it is!! It took a lot longer than I expected to put it all together (just under 3 hrs, start to finish), so I'm glad it was my middle of the day, cooking for the sake of cooking project, and no hungry bodies were waiting for me. It was fun!
My notes: I left out the nutmeg (don't care for it) and made 4 layers instead of 3 because that's how the noodles fit in my pan. Oh, and you might add "1/2 tsp salt" to the instructions in #5... it didn't cause me any trouble because I overlooked the salt until #7 anyway. And I could safely wait until #9 is underway to fire up the oven, but maybe I'm slow!
Thanks for a great recipe. I'll gladly eat this all week!
FeelsLikeHomeBlog says
I'm so glad you liked it! 🙂 And thanks for the tips, Carol. It always helps to get someone else's perspective. You're talking to the woman whose from scratch lasagna experiment last year took 13 hours. I don't judge anyone's kitchen speed!