It’s lasagne time! Are you excited? I certainly am. If you ever thought that being vegan means leaving behind flavoursome and popular delicacies, I’m here to tell you that, luckily, you were mistaken! In this tutorial we share with you our take on a dish really close to our hearts: traditional Italian lasagne. As you can imagine, we have even higher expectations when it comes to recipes belonging to our tradition, so let’s see how we managed to keep this recipe simple and delicious at the same time. Buon appetito!
For the béchamel sauce:
¼ cupcornstarch
2 pinchesnutmeg (or mace)
2 pinchesblack pepper
¼ tspsalt
2¼ cupnon-dairy milk (read notes)
1 tbspvegan butter (optional)
For the ragù:
3.5ozsoy mince (TVP)
½ mediumcarrots
½ mediumonions
½ stickcelery
1 bottletomato passata (24.5oz)
1 cupwater
½ tspgarlic granules
½ tspmiso paste
¼ tspbaking soda (optional)
1 pinchblack pepper
1 tspchopped rosemary
For a 9x9-inch (23x23 cm) oven dish:
10 lasagne sheets
ragù
béchamel sauce
vegan cheese
Instructions
- To begin with, take the carrots, the onions and the celery and dice them as finely as you desire.
- For the béchamel sauce, place a saucepan over a medium heat and tip in the dry ingredients, followed by the milk. Whisk the ingredients to properly disperse the starch, swap the whisk for a spatula and start stirring the ingredients.
- As soon as the milk is warm, you can add in the vegan butter and keep stirring to dissolve it. Stir constantly until the sauce thickens and reaches boiling point, and then turn off the heat. Let the sauce cool down completely before using it.
- For the tomato sauce, take a pan, place it over a medium heat, and tip in the onions, the carrots, the celery and the passata. Clean the bottle of the passata with the watr from the recipe and add the tomato water to the pan.
- Add in the garlic granules, the miso paste and the baking soda.
- Now, bring the sauce to the boil, cover the pan with the lid, turn the heat down to the minimum and cook the sauce for 15 minutes. If your passata is already quite thick, adjust the cooking time to prevent it from becoming excessively dense.
- In the meantime you can rehydrate the TVP by placing it into a bowl, covering it with boiling water and letting it stand for one minute. Once the time has elapsed, drain it and squeeze out the excess water.
- Once the 15 minutes have elapsed, remove the lid from the pan, add in the TVP, the chopped rosemary and a dash of black pepper if desired.
- Stir the ingredients together, bring the liquid back to the boil, cover the pan with the lid and let the sauce simmer for another 15 minutes over the lowest heat, or until reasonably thick.
- Once the time has elapsed, turn off the heat and let the sauce cool down completely before using it. Since this sauce is a key component of the final lasagne, make sure to taste it and adjust the salt if necessary.
- Preheat the oven to 180°C or 360°F.
- To build the lasagne, tip some of the ragù into the dish followed by some of the béchamel, and spread the ingredients.
- Now, place a layer of pasta on top of the filling, add more ragù and béchamel on top of it and also a layer of vegan cheese if desired.
- Keep alternating a layer of pasta to a layer of filling until you run out of ingredients.
- To get an even more appealing lasagne, add a generous layer of béchamel sauce on top of the last layer of sauce, and also a good quantity of meltable vegan cheese.
- Place the lasagne into the preheated oven and bake it for 30 minutes.
- To get a lasagne that perfectly keeps its shape, let it cool down for ten to 15 minutes before slicing it and serving it.
Substitutions and Tips
- TVP (textured vegetable protein) can be substituted by any other plant-based ‘meat’ you can find. Great substitutes are definitely tofu or seitan.
- For this recipe we used a cheese called ‘VioLife pizza Cheese’. If this specific product is not available in your country, any other meltable vegan cheese should work just as well.
- For a gluten-free version, simply substitute standard pasta with gluten-free lasagne sheets.
- Feel free to use any non-dairy milk you want for this preparation, as they all work well. We used soy milk in this instance but almond milk and oat milk work just as well.
- Baking soda is an alkaline ingredient and it is used to lower the acidity of the tomato sauce. If the tomato sauce you use is not too acidic, you can skip this ingredient altogether.
Yield, Times and Info
Makes: 4 servings
Preparation Time: 20m
Resting Time: 30m
Total Time: 50m
Cooking Temperature: 180°C - 360°F
Storage Times: Keeps for 2 days in the fridge
Preparation Time: 20m
Resting Time: 30m
Total Time: 50m
Cooking Temperature: 180°C - 360°F
Storage Times: Keeps for 2 days in the fridge
Nutritional Info
Serving Size: 400g (¼ recipe) Calories: 378kcal Carbohydrate: 63g Starch: 31g Sugar: 13g Fiber: 9.5g Fat: 4g Saturated Fat: 0.5g Unsaturated Fat: 3.5g Protein: 22g Sodium: 683mg Water: 304g
