Pasta-free Lasagne

It's a perfect recipe for people with gluten intolerance, vegans/vegetarians and people who want to avoid eating pasta, but they want to eat their lasagne!

There is plenty of vegetables in it and very little dairy, but you can change the recipe depending on your preference. You can skip the cheese or swap it for dairy-free alternative, or you can swap aubergine to meat. You can even swap courgette to pasta - but in this case I would be surprised that you want to follow this recipe.

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Ingredients :

"PASTA" -

3 crougettes (about 600 g)

RAGU -

500 ml of tomato sauce or passata (you cam make your own using recipe for Tomato Sauce - from scratch)

1 medium-sized aubergine (as our "meat" but you can replace it with actual mince if you wish)

medium-sized white onion

1 tsp salt

1 tsp ground black pepper

BECHAMEL -

3 tbsp olive oil

3-5 tbsp plain flour (when I made it with oat milk it took 5 tbsp of flour, when with full fat coconut milk needed less flour)

450 ml oat milk or non-dairy milk (you can use regular milk)

0.5 tsp salt

2 tsp ground black pepper

0.5 ground nutmeg

CHEESE:

50-100 g Parmigiano Reggiano ( you can use any other Italian hard cheese, dairy-free alternative or mozzarella)

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Method :

Preheat the oven to 200'C (fan). Line a deep metal/glass tray (20x30 cm) with parchment paper or brush it with layer of oil.

1. Wash courgettes, cut off the ends. Slice it in thin ribbons lengthways (as thin as possible). Place your ribbons in a bowl and sprinkle with a little bit of salt.

2. Wash, peel and chop aubergine (small dice). Peel and chop onion. Place both in a heated pan with couple tablespoons of olive oil.

3. When aubergine and onion is soft and starts getting some colour add your tomato sauce or passata. Add salt and pepper, then simmer for 5 minutes.

4. For bechamel place olive oil and flour in a sauce pan, whisk together into a paste. Put over medium heat and slowly pour your milk into the sauce pan while constantly whisking.

5. Add salt, pepper and nutmeg to your bechamel. Keep whisking.

6. When it's gonna reach high temperature it will start to thicken quickly, that's why its important to whisk it constantly. When it's thick turn off the heat.

7. Take your tray. Start by putting a thin layer or ragu, then crougette and bechamel. Repeat that process 3-4 times or until your tray is full.

8. When your tray is full it's time for cheese! Put as much as you want on top and put your pasta-free lasagne in the oven for 20-25 minutes.

Enjoy!