Italian food is so comforting and satisfying and this vegan Italian lasagne is too. Lots of juicy layers of nutritious vegan mince, interleaved with wholemeal pasta – a healthy hearty meal. Served with smashed potatoes and garlic bread and the ever present hummus you can’t go wrong.
Sainsbury’s used to do wholemeal lasagne sheets, but it seems no longer! So step up Jamie Oliver with some superb wholewheat lasagne sheets! Why would you use white pasta when you can have much more nutritious wholewheat organic lasagne sheets. Make the special vegan “meat sauce” or ragu as it’s called in bulk, then putting this lasagne together is pretty fast. The vegan “meat” sauce is quick and easy – but incredibly nutritious and so tasty!
If you make a large one, it’s fairy easy to divide up any left-over and freeze it for later use. If that’s not your style, just halve the quantities for a smaller one. Generally a traditional Italian lasagne will use a bechamel cheese sauce between the layers of pasta and on top of each “meat” sauce layer. You can substitute grated cheese for this if you wish and then make less white sauce. I’ve written the recipe with enough for the creamy white sauce on all the layers.
You should have around 4 layers of pasta, and 4 layers of the “meat” sauce. The bottom layer of “meat” sauce is quite thin, and is more to make sure the pasta doesn’t stick to the bottom. For the final layer, I like to put grated Cheezely mozzarella on top of the white sauce. Then I sprinkle some herbs and spices on top, mixed with some breadcrumbs. This gives the final layer a delicious spicy crunchiness.
As you’ve already got the oven on, doing some garlic bread and smashed potatoes to go with it is a no brainer. Allow time to let your vegan Italian lasagne sit a bit before serving it with a seasonal green vegetable.
Vegan Italian Lasagne
Equipment
- 1 large deep square oven dish 25cm by 35cm this is for a double quanity use 18cm by 25cm for a single quantity
Ingredients
The meat sauce substitute
- 1500 g my vegan meat sauce substitute
https://philsveganrecipes.com/sauces-sweet-and-savoury/vegan-meat-sauce-substitute/ see recipe elsewhere on this site or use recipe below
the white sauce
- 150 g wholemeal flour bread or pastry flour are fine
- 100 g rapeseed oil cold pressed
- 1850 g unsweetened soya milk
- 3 tbsps heaped nutritional yeast flaks
- 2 tbsps flat low salt veg stock
- 1 cube umami veg stock optional
- 1 tsp ground black pepper
- 1 tsp onion granules or powder
- 1 tsp garlic granules or powder
- 1/2 tsp yeast extract I prefer Natex as it's low salt
- 250 g vegan cheddar cheese grated
The lasagne assembly and spices
- 24 sheets wholewheat lasagne that's 6 per layer.
- 100 g vegan cheddar - grated
- 75 g Cheezely - grated
- 25 g wholemeal breadcrumbs
- 2 teasps oregano or Italian seasoning
- 1 teasp smoked or ordinary paprika
Instructions
Making the Vegan Meat Sauce Substitute
- Make a one third quantity of the meat sauce substitute. Search on this site for "vegan meat sauce substitute" - or follow the recipe below this one. Either make a â…“ quantity of the sauce, or make a whole quantity and freeze the rest in 500g containers
Making the White Sauce
- put the flour and oil into a large pan and begin to saute on a medium heat until it starts to brown.
- add the soya milk gradually stirring all the time. You can use a stick blender to break any lumps up if they form.
- Add in the vegan cheese, yeast flakes, pepper, onion & garlic granules and stock cubes - basically everything else on the list, and keep stirring.
- simmer gently for 10 minutes or so to cook and thicken thoroughly. Use a stick blender to break any lumps that may form.
Constructing the Lasagne
- Check in advance how many sheets you will need - my pretty large pan requires 6 sheets per layer.
- Soak the lasagne sheets in tepid water for 60 minutes. This isn't strictly necessary, but it makes it easier to judge the liquid content, and also makes sure that they are nice and soft when it's cooked. They should be quite flexible, but not too floppy.
- put a thinnish layer of the vegan meat sauce on the bottom of the oven dish - 270g approx. I find it easiest to put the whole pan or tray on top of my scales and just weigh it in. Don't forget to zero after each layer of "meat" sauce or "cheese" sauce!
- place the wholewheat lasagne sheets as a single layer on top of this. Trimming the corners of the outermost sheets will help them fit better.
- Spread a more generous, layer of vegan meat sauce on top - 410g approx
- Drizzle or spread a thinner layer of the bechemel sauce on that, 250g approx.
- then add another single layer of pasta.
- repeat steps 3 to 5 until you have 4 layers of pasta sheets with vegan meat sauce and cheese sauce underneath.
- Add a final thicker layer of bechemel sauce on top - 1000g approx. Any sauce left over just freeze to use in another dish.
- sprinkle vegan cheddar on that - 100g approx
- grate some melty vegan cheese - I like Cheezely best - approx 75g
- sprinkle some wholemeal breadcrumbs over the top approx 25g
- finally add some herbs and spices - oregano or Italian herb mix and smoked paprika - even a few chilli flakes.
- bake at 180°C for 45 to 50 minutes until golden brown on top and heated well & right through. Make sure it doesn't over brown - you may need to cover it with aluminium foil towards the end it is.
- Remove from the oven and allow to sit for at about 10 minutes before serving. This is necessary just to let it settle a bit and stop bubbling. It's less likely to go all over the place while serving if you do this.
Notes
- I've currently written the recipe for a 25cm by 35cm baking dish, which conveniently takes 6 sheets of lasagne. a 3 sheet lasagne will need an 18cm by 25cm baking dish.
- Soaking the sheets first as in the recipe helps to get the liquidity of the sauces right. Because the lasagne sheets soak up quite a lot of water, it's easier to judge if you soak them first.
- The layers of vegan meat sauce are quite thin relatively compared to say mousaka or pastitsio where it's quite a thick layer, but becauase there are four layers of the vegan "meat" sauce, it's about the same overal quantity.
vegan meat sauce
Ingredients
- 500 g pack of vegan mince – plant pioneers no bull or similar
- 600 g or 2 large onions Red or white is fine
- 100 g garlic
- 600 g or 2 packs of chestnut mushrooms
- 735 g or 2 cans of brown, red, or green whole lentils already cooked. A mixture of different lentils is good, puy, brown, green.
- 1 tube A tube of tomato puree
- 4 heaped tbsps yeast flakes
- 4 flat tbsps of stock powder
- 2 tbsps. of smoked paprika
- 2 heap tbsps of oregano
- 2 cans of chopped tomatoes.
- 2 tbsps of soya sauce – the naturally brewed sort.
Instructions
- Finely chop the onions in a large pan
- Add some cold pressed rapeseed or olive oil and being sauteeing
- Add in the garlic chopped or crushed – blitzing it in a food processor is definitely easiest.
- Meanwhile wash and pulse blitz the mushrooms so they are in fairly small pieces.
- As the onions soften and begin to brown, add the mushrooms and oregano to the pan with a little extra oil if needed.
- Continue sautéing until the mushrooms are browning too.
- Cook the veggie mince according to the instructions – I generally use my Actifry for this - but you can do it in a wok or ordinary pan.
- Add to the other ingredients, and add in the chopped tomatoes, tomato puree, paprika, stock powder, yeast flakes and soya sauce.
- Cook off for 15 minutes or so, until the veggies and mince are well incorporated.
- Finally add in the pre-cooked lentils and stir briefly – then take off the heat.
- Add any extra liquid to get the consistency so it can be easily spread as in the picture.
- Portion into 250g or 500g containers.
Notes
- portioning this up into some 250g and some 500g containers gives you the most flexibility when you come to use it in a lasagne, moussaka, pastitsio, wraps, or nachos.
- Of course as always, feel free to miss out ingredients, or adjust the contents.
- Make sure you end up with 3,000g of sauce - the best way to do this is by weighing the saucepan first, and making sure it ways' a little over 3,000g more at the end. You can add tomatoes or water to achieve this. That then means you will have 12 250g or an equivalent quantity when you portion it up.
- Mashed potato pie or shepherdess pie uses 365 to 400g per small oblong dish, but any left over can just be refrozen.
