I’m a huge fan of lasagne, it has always been one of my favourite foods, even though I eat it very rarely. I recall that mum used to make good lasagne when I was a kid, not often though! It is a dish that requires a bit of work, but the end result is definitely worth the trouble. Now, this is my first attempt at a vegan lasagne, and I wasn’t sure about the white sauce in particular. In fact, Elizabeth made the white sauce, and it turned out to be excellent! So, even if this isn’t quite the ultimate vegan lasagne advertised, it’s certainly a pretty decent first attempt, and next time it will hopefully be just about perfect.

Ingredients
2 Small Courgettes
1 Orange Pepper
1 Yellow Onion
1 Pack of Daiya Mozzarella Style Shreds
~18 Lasagne Sheets

Marinara:
~400g Jar of Tomato Sauce of Choice
~200g Faux Ground Beef
Applewood Smoked Salt
Ground Nutmeg
Chipotle

White Sauce:
3 Cups of Soy/Almond/Oat Milk (we used soy)
2-3 Tablespoons of Flour
2-3 Tablespoons of Vegan Margarine (e.g. Earth Balance)
Thyme
Applewood Smoked Salt

Serves four to six, depending on how hungry (or greedy!) you are. We went through half of the lasagne in one go…

Mmm.. Vegan Lasagne

Cooking
Time required: ~1h30min
-Heat oven to 375 Fahrenheit.
-Chop the veggies into desired shape (flat).
-Start with the white sauce: melt the margarine in a pan, mix in the flour, and then add soy milk and spices, whisking regularly.
-The Marinara is easy: put the tomato sauce in a sauce pan, mix in your faux ground beef, add spices.
-Now the lasagne layers: start by covering the bottom of your dish, then add half of your chopped veggies and some Daiya shreds.
-Cover the first layer with the marinara sauce; you can use all of it.
-Next lasagne layer: cover the previous layer with lasagne sheets and layer the rest of the veggies on top, adding some more Daiya shreds.
-Cover the second layer with the white sauce, use half of it.
-Now the top layer: cover the previous layer with lasagne sheets and then cover the sheets with the rest of the white sauce, sprinkling the rest of the Daiya shreds on top.
-Cover the whole dish with tin foil and bake in the oven for 30-50min, or until the pasta is cooked.
-Uncover the dish, and bake for another 10-15min, or until the Daiya shreds on top have melted and most of the liquid boiled away.
-Cut into large squares with a knife and lift to your plate carefully!

That was lush! We ended up baking the lasagne under tin foil for quite a while, maybe 50min, but this depends on your oven, the amount of liquid used, and so on, so you have to keep an eye on it. There are all sorts of variations of lasagne, and you see it being made with just one sauce sometimes, either white or the marinara, but I think that a proper lasagne should have both sauces, that’s the whole point of the layers! We had the veggies layered in separately, but you could chop them a little finer and just add to the marinara sauce. This depends partly on what kind of veggies you’re using as well (spinach and aubergine are good ones at least). With hindsight I would’ve at least sauteéd the onion and put it in the marinara sauce, but I can’t complain really, this was absolutely delicious, and the consistency was good. The white sauce was indeed terrific, I think the applewood smoked salt and thyme was a great mix. I would perhaps like more layers if possible, but our dish was huge and there’s more than enough lasagne as it is!