Vegan Lasagna! Who Knew?

In all my 30 years of avoiding making lasagna, I always assumed that it was a cheese-centric dish. It is, for the most part, but my lovely friend Amanda makes a bad ass vegan lasagna! Amanda is vegan and an amazing cook and baker. If you never tried her cookies, click here to find out what I'm talking about.

This one's for all you vegans out there. She's agreed to reveal her top secret vegan lasagna recipe. Here she is, all the way from PDX: take it away Amanda:


This is a semi-difficult yet totally worth it recipe. Some of you may have no clue what these ingredients are all about. Nutritional yeast, what the heck?! I promise your local health food store will have it, along with the rest of the ingredients. This will serve 4-6 people.

Ingredients:

* 1-2 jars of spaghetti sauce, depending on how saucy you like things. We use a jar and a half. A lot of sauces aren't vegan and contain goat's milk, of all things, so be sure to check ingredients.
* 16oz frozen spinach
* 1/2 lb carrots, chopped
* 1/4 cup chopped parsley
* 4 cloves minced garlic
* 1/4 cup vegetable broth
* 1 package of extra firm tofu, drained, pressed http://toomanycombined.blogspot.com/2008/10/how-to-press-tofu-in-five-easy-steps.html and crumbled to resemble feta cheese. Season to taste with italian seasoning and black pepper.
* 8 oz container of herbed Tofutti cream cheese
* 2 Tbsp lemon juice
* 1/8 tsp nutmeg (trust me!)
* Lasagna noodles, boiled al-dente before baking.
* 1/4 cup nutritional yeast
* *Toppings of choice. I normally go for mushrooms or olives - or both!

Get cooking:

1.) Slice carrots and steam

2.) Add a splash of olive oil to a large pot and saute parsley and garlic for about 2 minutes on medium heat.

3.) Add carrots and veggie broth, simmer uncovered for 5 minutes. (Meanwhile, heat the sauce and frozen spinach together in a pot until the spinach thaws.)

4.) Add crumbled/herbed tofu, cream cheese, and lemon juice. Stir until the cream cheese melts.

5.) Stir in nutmeg and nutritional yeast.

6.) Arrange noodles in the bottom of a loaf pan. If you're doubling the recipe to serve more people, you'll obviously need a bigger pan.

7.) Layer the tofu-ricotta mixture on top of the first layer of noodles. Layer sauce and frozen spinach mixture on top of that, and then repeat with another layer of noodles. I usually end up with two layers of the vegan ricotta and sauce. I top it off with one last layer of noodles and sauce with some mushrooms and olives.

8.) Cover your lasagna with foil and bake for 15 minutes at 375 degrees. Remove foil and bake an additional 30-40 minutes.




My blog is private, so if you would like to check out more vegan recipes - or read my daily ramblings about life as a new mom - shoot me over an email at stumptowncrunchbakery@gmail.com.

Thank you Sarah for featuring little ol' me on your fantastic blog!