This lasagne recipe is a great way to get your veggies in, and swapping onions for shallots and adding pancetta, chorizo or bacon gives it a lovely smoky sweetness. If you’ve got picky eaters who don’t eat their veg, you can pause at step 3 and blitz the veg mix in a food processor before adding back in – they won’t know a thing!
This dish does take a while, but it’s well worth it, especially for batch cooking. Pop on your favourite podcast and enjoy!
- Serves 8
- Freezes well – freeze in portions (Befriend your Freezer here!)
- Takes around 2 hours from unpacking the shopping to serving
- Serve with a side salad and garlic bread
This Lasagne can handle all kinds of veg, depending on what you have in the fridge!
Veggie Packed Lasagne Recipe
Ingredients:
For the Ragu
- 500g Organic Drumanilra Dexter Beef Mince
- 1 handful of smoked pancetta, bacon, or chorizo
- 2-3 stalks celery, finely diced
- 2-3 carrots, finely diced
- 1 onion or 2 shallots , finely diced
- 2 cloves of garlic (although we used 4, that’s personal preference)
- Half a courgette, finely diced
- 1 red pepper, finely diced
- 1.5 handfuls of mushrooms, finely diced
- 1 small glass of red wine (or however much you’re willing to share)
- 1 stock cube (chicken or beef stock work well) in 200ml water
- Tin of chopped tomatoes or passata
- 2tbsp olive oil
- Salt, pepper & mixed herbs
For the white sauce
- (You need a whisk for this, no amount of wooden spoon stirring can do as good a job)
- 1 tbsp plain flour
- A good knob of butter
- 450ml milk
- Pinch of nutmeg (optional)
For the layers
- Lasagne sheets
- CHEESE! – cheddar, mozzarella, ricotta or a mix of all 3!
To serve
- Drumanilra Organic Salad Leaves with your choice of dressing
- Garlic bread: Carraig Rua Sourdough with garlic butter, in the oven or air fryer at 180 for 5-10 minutes
Veggie Packed Lasagne Recipe Method:
For the Ragu
- Heat olive oil on a large pan to a medium heat
- Add chopped onion / shallot, celery and carrots, let them sweat for a few minutes
- Add mushrooms and courgettes, cook for 2 minutes, then pour this veg mix into a bowl
- To the pan add some more olive oil, heat the bacon / pancetta / chorizo for 1 minute then add the beef and pork and brown off
- Next, add the veg mix back in
- Season well – salt, pepper & mixed herbs
- Add a tin of chopped tomatoes
- Add the stock (one of our chefs swears that the secret to great home cooking is chicken stock!)
- Pour in the red wine
- Simmer until the mixture isn’t too wet – this can take a while, 30 minutes or so, stir regularly
For the White Sauce
- In a separate saucepan, add a ping-pong ball sized knob of butter and gently melt
- Add the same amount of flour and mix thoroughly, let the flour cook, stirring regularly for around 2 minutes
- Pour in a dash of milk and whisk until fully incorporated
- Keep adding milk and stirring until the white sauce has thickened
- Add cheese if you’re feeling cheesy!
Layer it up!
- In your lasagne dish, add a layer of ragu, then dollops of the white sauce
- Then add a layer of lasagne sheets
- Keep layering until your dish is almost full (don’t overfill or it will spill all over your oven and you’ll have to clean it while you should be eating lasagne)
- Sprinkle with cheese on top
- Bake at 180 for 35 – 45 minutes
- Prep your Garlic Bread & salad while you wait!
We would have taken a better photo but we were hungry!
Final Important Note: It is a rule that the person who did the cooking gets the crispy cheesy corner pieces!
