Vegetable Lasagna Meatless Meal or Add Chicken {Video}

Vegetable Lasagna–meatless meal or add chicken!

Since it's Lent, I thought you might appreciate another good meatless/vegetarian meal, however I've made this with chicken too. Either way it's a hit, and the whole family asks for seconds!

First here's a video to show you how I make this vegetable lasagna meatless meal, and if you want, you can also let me know something: Do you prefer my dorky cameraman or should I go back to the just-me cooking videos?! 🙂

(Video plays after the ad.)

Print Recipe

Roasted Asparagus Lasagna

Servings: 1 9x13 pan

Author: Kelly the Kitchen Kop

Ingredients

• 1 pound fresh asparagus, trimmed and cut into 1-inch pieces – Kent thinks the skinny ones are the best & I agree!
• 1-2 cups more “primavara”-type vegetables if you'd like: carrots, broccoli, peppers, cherry tomatoes-halved, string beans, chopped spinach or kale, etc.
• 1 cup sliced fresh mushrooms, if you like them
• 3 Tablespoons olive oil or avocado oil, divided
• 4 Tablespoons butter, pastured butter is best
• 6 Tablespoons all-purpose flour, I use organic
• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt, add more to your taste preference
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper, again, add more to your taste preference
• 3 cups milk – and if it's not Lent, for even better nutrition and more flavor, you can substitute some homemade chicken stock from the freezer for part of the milk
• 1 cup thinly sliced red onion
• 4-6 + garlic cloves, I like a lot – more gives it better flavor or dried garlic
• 12 ounces Lasagna noodles, cooked and drained--or use the no-boil kind
• 2 cups shredded mozzarella
• 3/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 2 cups optional: cooked, chopped chicken-- you could use leftover chicken from a previous meal, so easy!

Instructions

• Note that this makes 1-11x14, but I always make extra for the freezer or for a friend.
• Place asparagus, mushrooms, other veggies, and chicken if you're using it (but not the tomatoes yet) in a shallow baking dish or roasting pan. Drizzle with 2 Tablespoons oil, toss to coat. Bake at 450* for 8-10 minutes or until vegetables are browned a little and starting to get tender; set aside. Reduce heat to 350*. (I also sometimes just lightly steam the veggies and skip the roasting step.)
• In large saucepan melt butter, saute onion and garlic until soft and starting to lightly brown. Stir in flour, salt & pepper until smooth. Cook for 2 minutes. Very gradually stir in milk. Bring to a boil; cook and stir for 2 minutes or until thickened. Taste test to make sure it tastes really good--you'll probably need more salt and pepper. (You could also add some garlic powder for more flavor too.) Remove from heat; stir in roasted veggies, optional chicken, and tomatoes.
• Grease a 9×13 baking dish with a stick of cold butter. Start layering: noodles, a third of veggies, a third of the white sauce, repeat twice. Sprinkle both cheeses on top. (You can also layer everything the way I show you in the video, you can't screw this recipe up!)
• Cover loosely (so foil doesn't touch the cheese) and bake at 350 for 35 minutes. Uncover; bake 10-15 minutes longer or until heated through and the cheese is golden brown. Let stand for 15 minutes before cutting.
• By the way, this lasagna can easily be made the day before and kept in the frig until you're ready to pop it in the oven. See notes below about how we served this for a crowd.

Notes

When Kent & I had our bible study friends over for dinner recently, we wanted to make the meal extra special, so this is what we did: we served this dish with a homemade Tomato Bisque. We'd had something similar when we were in Chicago once and wanted to see if we could pull it off. It was easy...

Start by making another white sauce the same way as in the above recipe.  As it thickens, add a jar of organic tomatoes and a jar of organic tomato paste and use your hand blender to get it all smooth. Add about 1/8 of a cup of organic cane sugar and keep stirring. Add salt, pepper & garlic and keep taste-testing (with a clean spoon of course!) and playing with it until it's so good you can't stop. We served it on the side in little shot glasses so they could either dip a fork-full of their lasagna in it, or pour it over the top.

 

Here's a photo I snapped another day that I made it:

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