Lasagna

So, I know this is completely different to what I usually blog about, but i've been thinking about sharing this recipe for quite a while now because it's awesome. Healthy, low fat lasagna?! And it tastes amazing??! Hell yes it does! 

The story behind this healthy, low fat lasagna started about 8 months ago. We had finally decided to reign in our love for all things fatty and overhauled our usual home recipes to try and make them healthier and lower fat without compromising on taste. One of our favourite, most indulgent meals was H's eggplant lasagne. It was so good that we would often find ourselves going back for seconds. Clearly, this had to stop!

During our searches for healthier versions of our favourite comfort foods, we stumbled across Chocolate Covered Katie and her recipe for her creamy cauliflower alfredo sauce, which we made mac n cheese from. It was a hit. After discovering how creamy the sauce was it lead to the secret of our lasagna recipe - CAULIFLOWER!

We no longer make traditional bechamel sauce which contains a decent amount of butter, flour, milk etc, and instead make our own cauliflower bechamel!

To make the cauliflower bechamel:

Ingredients:

• one whole cauliflower
• about 1 and a half cups of your milk of choice (your choice here will obviously determine whether it's vegan or not!)
• one teaspoon of garlic powder
• one teaspoon of vegetable stock powder
• salt and pepper to taste

Method:

• Chop one whole cauliflower into smallish pieces (see in picture below)
• In a saucepan, pour your choice of milk (low fat dairy, soy, almond, rice etc) to about half the level of the cauliflower
• Add garlic powder, stock powder and salt and pepper
• boil the cauliflower in the milk until very soft
• Transfer the cooked cauliflower to a blender and blend until smooth

Dry frying the eggplant without oil is delicious, soft and healthy!

Other ingredients:

• For the tomato sauce:
• Tinned tomato
• onion
• garlic
• herbs
• or just use a jar of store bought sauce!
• grated cheese of your choice (sheese if you want it to be vegan)
• eggplant (a couple of big ones!)
• spinach
• lasagna sheets

For the rest of the lasagna you will need to make a tomato sauce, as well as frying the eggplant. To save on calories and fat, we have also discovered dry frying the eggplant. This means frying the egplant in a non-stick frypan with NO OIL. That's right. It seems counter-intuitive, but trust me, it works!

Slice the eggplant lengthways into about 0.7cm pieces and fry until they are soft. Put the pieces aside to layer in the lasagne later.

I'm not going to tell you how to make your tomato sauce. I mean, even if you're using a jar of store bought sauce, go for it! Our sauce is made basically using tinned tomatoes, onion, garlic and some herbs. That's it.

Layering the lasagna and prepping the side.

Once you have all your elements ready, cover the bottom of your lasagna tray with a thin layer of tomato sauce, followed by lasagna pasta sheets, then another layer of tomato, topped with slices of eggplant, cheese (can add or not depending on how low cal you want this to be), a layer of spinach leaves and a layer of the cauliflower bechamel. Repeat this a couple of times until you end with a layer of lasagne sheets topped by a large amount of the cauliflower bechamel.

Once you have your lasagne assembled, pop it in the oven at about 220 degrees celsius (430 fahrenheit) and cook covered for about 45 minutes. Take it out of the oven, uncover and sprinkle on some grated cheese (again adjust the amount according to how calorific you want it to be!) and put it back in the oven, uncovered, until the cheese is brown. Be sure to stick a knife into the lasagne to check that the pasta sheets are cooked through.

I served my lasagne with some sautéed brocollini, garlic and onion, but it's also great with a side salad or other vegetables.

Enjoy!!

I hope this recipe makes sense and that you enjoy making it! It's definitely our favourite splurge meal and I think this lower fat version is just as tasty! It's also very easy to make vegan, which we have done many times by using vegan milk options (almond milk works well) in the bechamel and breadcrumbs on top instead of cheese!)

If you have any questions, or anything is unclear in my haphazard recipe above, please let me know in the comments!