A beautiful roasted vegetable and spinach pesto lasagna starring only the freshest ingredients. Guaranteed to satisfy even the hungriest belly.
Most people have a certain dish that features prominently throughout their lives. Usually it’s a celebration cake or some traditional recipe passed down trough the family over the generations. For me that dish is lasagna. And no, I am not Italian.
Personally, I have never been a huge fan. All that meat, cheese and pasta…so heavy it just hurts my tummy to think about. But, for a lot of important people in my life, it is their favourite dish of all time…so it has become a bit of a constant.
For my brother, it was THE dish he asked mum to make for his special birthday dinner growing up. In fact, he is now well into his twentie’s and mum still makes it for him every year, candlelit setting and all (he is a sensitive soul, my brother).
For my husband, it has been his ‘go to’ dish since we first started living together, and I had to go away for work or holidays, and wouldn’t be around to eat with him for a couple of days. He would go to Aldi and buy one of those massive family sized concoctions and eat it over a few days. He can totally cook (in fact, he is an awesome cook when the notion takes him), it’s just of those things I would never buy, so for him it has always been a true guilty pleasure.
This lasagna love takes a whole new level when it comes to my father in law…last year he came to visit us the whole way from Australia pretty much just to eat the 10 layer lasagna at Biba Restaurant (I have no affiliations, but the food at this place is amazing). At the time he claimed it was to visit the grandkids (and us)…but seeing as we made two trips to Biba over 5 days while he was here, I beg to differ.
That’s one happy (read messy) baby
In an effort to keep the lasagna love going (and to empty my expanding veggie drawer) I put together this vegan and gluten free roasted vegetable and spinach pesto lasagna. I left out the traditional layers of pasta; and I will never look back!
Sounds boring, I know…what’s a lasagna without meat, cheese and pasta? It’s delicious that’s what it is!! Both kids and the hubby devoured it (my 8 month old had like 3 servings…he is a baby food monster) and it was so comforting in only the way a lasagna can be; but without the lead belly that usually follows. If you like lasagna, then be sure to try out roasted vegetable and spinach pesto lasagna, I promise you won’t be disappointed!!
- 2 cups cashews soaked for about 2 hours and drained
- 1/2 cup water
- 1/2 tsp garlic powder
- 1 tsp salt
- Juice of 1 lemon
- 1 tsp nutritional yeast
- 4 cups spinach or kale ripped with stems removed
- 2 cloves garlic
- 2 tsp nutritional yeast
- 1/3 cup olive oil
- pinch of salt and pepper
- 1 small butternut squash
- 1 large sweet potato
- 2 medium zucchini
- 3 tsp olive oil
- 3 tomatoes sliced
- Pre-heat the oven to 450 degrees and line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper
- Drain the soaked cashews and add to a blender with 1/2 cup water, 1/2 tsp garlic powder, 1 tsp salt, juice of 1 lemon and 1 tsp nutritional yeast. Mix until smooth and set aside. (This will be your béchamel)
- For the pesto add the spinach/kale, 2 cloves garlic, 2 tsp nutritional yeast, 1/3 cup olive oil, dash of salt and pepper to a food processor and blend. Add more olive oil as necessary. Set aside
- Peel the butternut squash and the sweet potato and cut into 1/4 inch thick slices (remove the seeds from the squash). Slice the zucchini lengthwise so you have big long strips
- Toss the squash, sweet potato and zucchini slices with 3 tsp olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Arrange the slices in a single layer on the baking sheets and roast for 20 minutes until tender
- Reduce the heat to 350 degrees and let the roasted vegetables cool for about 10 minutes
- Lightly grease an oven proof dish and arrange your lasagna. Layer the sweet potato slices on the bottom of the dish so that they are slightly overlapping. Then add some pesto and cashew cheese sauce.
- Add another layer with tomatoes, another with the zucchini and another with the squash. Each time adding some pesto and cashew cheese between the vegetable layers. Add any remaining cashew cheese to the top of the lasagne.
- Bake for approx. 25-30 minutes and serve!
If you have a high powered blender you probably don't need to soak the cashews first - I don't.
Linh {A Beautiful RAWR} says
YES YES YES!!! I was JUST convincing my hubby that we need Meatless Mondays, but he didn’t want to eat eggplant parmesan (haha) so I am going to suggest this yummy dish to him for next week 🙂 What if I omit the cashews? Will this greatly change the taste/flavor? I have a toddler and don’t want to feed her any nuts…
Linh
http://abeautifulrawr.com
Whole Food Bellies says
Yay 🙂 I just used the cashews to make a vegan version of a cheese sauce, but if you aren’t vegan you could totally replace the cashews with cheese and make a normal béchamel sauce for the lasagne which would work great! I have had it both ways and it was just as delicious either way 🙂
Tabitha @ Coffee, Wine and Wanderlust says
This looks amazing! I am definitely going to have to make it soon. Thanks so much for sharing. 🙂
Whole Food Bellies says
You are very welcome Tabitha 🙂
Sam @ Grapefruit & Granola says
This looks delicious! One of my favorite things to do with lasagna is to blend up some butternut squash and mix it with the marinara sauce. I love it when a pasta dish is loaded with vegetables!
Whole Food Bellies says
Yum, that sounds like a great way of getting some extra veggies in there Sam! I’m the same – the more veggies in there the better 🙂
Crystal says
Printing this and hopefully trying it soon! Looks and sounds delicious! Great pictures!!
Whole Food Bellies says
Thanks Crystal!
Kat from curlsnchard.com says
This is such a different way to make lasagna! I’m a huge lasagna lover and nowadays usually use whole wheat or spelt pasta sheets in order to make it a bit healthier. Definitely have to try your version 🙂
Whole Food Bellies says
Yeah I wasn’t sure how it would go without the lasagne sheets but it worked really well!!
Meg @ Green With Decor says
Wow – this looks delicious! Pining to my “dinner” board so I can make this!
Whole Food Bellies says
Thanks Meg 🙂 Would love to hear how you go if you give it a try!
Katie says
Kid you not, I just sent this to my husband as something we need to make this week! Thanks for sharing! I can’t wait to try it. Better yet, I can’t wait for my two year old to eat it!!
Whole Food Bellies says
Yay 🙂 My 2 year old loved it, even with the ‘green’ stuff! Hopefully yours does too!
Nina says
Yummy! I tried a similar recipe once, using only zucchini, and it turned out really watery/soupy. Maybe adding in the sweet potato and butternut squash helps with that?
Whole Food Bellies says
Oh no Nina, it’s so annoying when you try something new and it doesn’t work out! In this recipe I roast the zucchini first in order to get rid of all that extra liquid it tends to hold – so you should be fine! Let me know how you go if you give it a try!
April says
This looks delicious! I printed it! That’s the first step, right? I LOVE the photo of the baby covered in it. We have one of those too. He’s 21 months now, but he still covers himself in his food, if he likes it. I have got to learn how to program printables on my site. Is it hard to learn?
Whole Food Bellies says
Thanks for stopping by April! Printing is definitely a good first step 🙂 I have a huge folder of recipes I have printed over the years and they all end up getting used…eventually!!
Haha, that’s how I measure a good meal these days – if they are messy enough to need a bath afterwards then it’s a success. Then we end up with bath soup (gross).
I used a plugin for the printables called Easy Recipe – obviously it is recipe specific so it would be perfect for your recipe posts but not sure about your other posts. I am sure google would have the answer though 🙂 If I come across any plugins that aren’t recipe specific I will be sure to let you know!