Hearty Lasagna

One of my favourite foods to make from scratch is lasagna! It takes a bit of time, but then I can add in meat AND veggies rather than settle for store bought which normally includes one or the other. I haven't quite figured out why they think the two can't live harmoniously together.... but anyway. Lasagna is also a great food to make for lots of leftovers! We usually make our lasagna in a 9X13 pan, and it will make 6-8 portions, depending on how hungry we are the night it was made.

I always start by making my own meat and veggie tomato sauce, which is really the heart of the lasagna. The longer you can let it simmer the better! Also, it freezes really, really well.

One of the best ways to freeze lasagna that I've discovered is to let it cool completely and then wrap each piece individually in saran wrap. It keeps out any freezer burn better than Tupperware, and takes up way less space in your freezer too!

Hearty Lasagna

Ingredients:

- 1 can diced tomatoes
- 2 cans preferred spaghetti sauce
- 1 lb ground meat, we use turkey
- 1 green pepper, diced
- 1/2 large onion, diced
- 1/2 zucchini, diced
- handful carrot matchsticks
- 3 or 4 cloves garlic, crushed
- 1 box of no cook lasagna noodles
- 1 500g container of cottage cheese
- 1 bag shredded mozzarella (or any other shredded cheese mix)

Directions:

- Brown ground meat in a skillet and drain off excess fat
- Add diced tomatoes, spaghetti sauce and browned ground meat to large saucepan. Mix together well. Add in veggies and crushed garlic cloves.
- Let sauce mixture simmer for at least an hour, preferably more.

To Assemble lasagna:
- place thin layer of sauce on bottom of 9X13 pan, add three lasagna noodles on top,

 

- add layer of sauce, spread half of cottage cheese container, and place more noodles,

 

- cover noodles with more sauce, spread the second half of the cottage cheese, add more noodles,
- add final layer of sauce to generously cover noodles and sprinkle grated cheese over the top liberally.

-Cover lasagna with tin-foil and bake in pre-heated oven at 350 degrees for 40 minutes. Remove tinfoil and bake for an additional 10 minutes. Let sit for 5-10 minutes before serving.

 

Although this lasagna already has veggies in it, it serves well with a side caesar salad to amp up the veggie quota of your meal, and to make it more likely that you'll get 8 servings out of it instead of just six.

Enjoy!!