I Lost My Noodles! Low Carb/South Beach Eggplant Lasagna

PattiCakeB's Note:

I was looking for a yummy South Beach recipe to curb my Italian Cravings. I found a vegetarian lasagna recipe using eggplant slices as noodles, substituted my own meat sauce, and voila! A low carb keeper in our home! The eggplant taste is indistinguishable with all of the bold italian flavors, and adds the needed texture of the missing noodles. I've also seen zucchini strips used as the mock noodles. Try it!

• Total Time: 1 hrs 45 mins
• Prep Time: 15 mins
• Cook Time: 1 hrs 30 mins

Ingredients:

Servings: 8

Mock Noodles

• 2 large eggplants , peeled, sliced lengthwise into 1/4 inch noodle-like strips
• cooking spray (olive oil spray is best)
• salt and pepper

Meat Sauce

• 1 ½ lbs ground sirloin or 1 ½ lbs turkey breast or 1 ½ lbs Italian sausage
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 onions , chopped
• 3 cloves chopped garlic
• 1 red pepper , chopped
• 1 (16 ounce) package sliced mushrooms
• 2 tablespoons italian seasoning (or mix of oregano, basil and thyme)
• 1 teaspoon fennel seed (optional)
• salt and pepper
• 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes (if you dare!) (optional)
• 1 (10 ounce) package frozen chopped spinach
• 1 cup red wine (optional) or 1 cup vodka (optional)
• 1 (28 ounce) can tomato sauce (or large jar sugar free sauce if you can find it)
• 1 (15 ounce) can diced tomatoes (for less sugar, 3 chopped roma tomatoes)

Cheese Mixture

• 2 cups low-fat ricotta cheese
• 2 eggs
• 3 green onions , chopped
• 3 cups shredded lowfat mozzarella cheese
• ½ cup parmesan cheese

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
2. Spray cookie sheet, arrange eggplant slices and season with salt and pepper.
3. Cook slices 5 minutes on each side.
4. Lower oven temp to 375.
5. Brown meat, onion and garlic in olive oil for 5 minutes.
6. Add red pepper and mushrooms, and cook 5 minutes.
7. Add spinach, tomatoes, spices and wine and simmer for 5-10 minutes.
8. Blend ricotta, egg and onion mixture.
9. Spread 1/3 of meat sauce in bottom of 9” x 13” glass pan.
10. Layer ½ eggplant slices, ½ ricotta, 1/3 mozzarella and parmesan.
11. Repeat.
12. Add last layer of sauce, then mozzarella and parmesan on top.
13. Cover with foil and bake at 375 degrees for 1 hour.
14. Remove foil and bake or broil another 5-10 minutes until cheese is browned.
15. Let it rest 10 minutes before slicing, if you can wait that long!

Reviews

[Baby Chevelle]

This was an amazing dish for me. I have been soo restricted on what I can eat, nothing was appealing to me, I looked at this and though, "Might not b worth the effort" boy was I wrong! But I sure do disagree with 15 min prep lol or else I am extremely slow lol

[Tea Jenny]

I absolutely loved this the flavour was perfect it tasted just like real lasagna. I am diabetic and can't have pasta anymore but I love lasagna and this is perfect for me. I didn't use the wine and for the meat I used ground beef. I think I made my eggplant a bit too thin and it almost melted away in the dish while cooking that's why it looks a bit muddled in the picture but the flavour was fantastic I will be making this again. I got one large dish and a smaller one and that was me cutting the recipe by half it's a great recipe for putting one in the freezer for an other day when I am short of time. Thank you so much for posting. Made for on tour with the diabetic forum. June 2011

[lindsay827]

I decided to make this as I am trying to cut back on carbs. It was very tasty however I think next time I'll opt to use the red wine in lieu of the vodka as I thought the sauce was a tad bitter. When we had left-overs the next night I ended up adding jarred spaghetti sauce hoping to get rid of some of the bitter taste, it was good!