Healthier Lasagna/Lasagne

photo by -Sylvie-


- Ready In:
- 1hr 10mins
- Ingredients:
- 19
- Serves:
-
4-6
ingredients
- 1⁄2 lb extra lean ground beef
- 1 medium onion, chopped
- 2 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 stalk celery, finely chopped
- 1 medium carrot, finely chopped
- 1 cup chopped mushroom
- 1 teaspoon oregano, dried
- 1 teaspoon basil, dried
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 2 (14 ounce) cans chopped tomatoes
- 2 tablespoons tomato paste
- 10 ounces fresh spinach, chopped
- 1 medium zucchini, grated (see note)
- 1 lb low fat cottage cheese
- 2 egg whites
- 6 no-boil lasagna noodles
- 1 3⁄4 ounces low fat mozzarella, grated
- salt, to taste
- black pepper, to taste
directions
- Preheat your oven to 190C/375F/Gas 5.
- In a non stick frying pan, brown the meat for about 7 minutes. Season with salt.
- Drain any excess fat from the pan by placing the meat into a sieve, keep aside.
- In the same pan, fry the onion, garlic, celery, carrot and mushrooms in a little olive oil for about five minutes.
- Add the meat back to the pan and add the tomato paste and chopped tomatoes at the same time.
- Season using the oregano, basil and sugar. Add salt and black pepper to taste.
- Simmer for about 15 minutes.
- In the meantime add the spinach, zucchini, cottage cheese and egg whites together in a bowl. Using a hand blender of food processor, blitz the ingredients until you achieve a sauce.
- Spread 1/4 of the tomato sauce in the bottom of a large lasagne dish. Cover with three lasange sheets. Next add another layer, using another 1/4 of the tomato sauce and then cover with half the cottage cheese sauce. Place the remaining three lasagne sheets over the top and cover with the remaining cottage cheese sauce.
- Cover with tin foil and bake for 45 minutes. After that time, remove the foil and top with the grated mozzarella cheese. Then return to the oven for a further 15 minutes.
- Serve with a green side salad.
- Note: As zuccini contain a lot of water, you might first want to place the grated pieces in a collander and sprinkle them with a little salt. Squeeze out any excess water before adding with the other ingredients. This is optional.
Questions & Replies

Got a question?
Share it with the community!
Reviews
-
I found that this took longer than 10 minutes to prepare. Maybe I'm slow but I also changed the receipie a bit. It took me 45 minutes to prepare. I didn't use any meat instead I used extra spinach (about 1 pound) and 4 cups mushrooms. I added the mushrooms to the sauce and I cooked down the extra spinach in a hot dry skillet until it wilted then added it to the lasagne insted of the meat layer. Instead of celery I used a yellow pepper and I added 3 more cloves of garlic. I omitted the suger and replaced it with crushed red chilli and added a splash of Balsamic Viniger to the sauce. I used 2 whole eggs in the cheese sauce instead of just the whites and didn't cover with foil to cook simply because I didn't have any. I omitted the Mozzarella and instead used a light sprinkeling of grated parmesan. It was delicious! Thanks for the receipie it was fun to play around with it and make it vegetarian!
Tweaks
-
I found that this took longer than 10 minutes to prepare. Maybe I'm slow but I also changed the receipie a bit. It took me 45 minutes to prepare. I didn't use any meat instead I used extra spinach (about 1 pound) and 4 cups mushrooms. I added the mushrooms to the sauce and I cooked down the extra spinach in a hot dry skillet until it wilted then added it to the lasagne insted of the meat layer. Instead of celery I used a yellow pepper and I added 3 more cloves of garlic. I omitted the suger and replaced it with crushed red chilli and added a splash of Balsamic Viniger to the sauce. I used 2 whole eggs in the cheese sauce instead of just the whites and didn't cover with foil to cook simply because I didn't have any. I omitted the Mozzarella and instead used a light sprinkeling of grated parmesan. It was delicious! Thanks for the receipie it was fun to play around with it and make it vegetarian!
RECIPE SUBMITTED BY
-Sylvie-
Dewsbury, West Yorkshire
Hi, I'm 31 and cooking and living in England. I was born in Germany and that's where I grew up and lived until I came to the UK to go to University in 1998.
I never went back to live in Germany, even though all my family is still there.