Vegetable Lasagna

This roasted vegetable lasagna is absolutely chock-full of veggies and has a delicious cottage cheese layer. The whole thing is topped with plenty of mozzarella cheese for one epic meal! This will be your go-to meatless lasagna recipe for Sunday supper and special occasions!

Remember that homemade lasagna recipe I shared a little while back? Well, today I’m sharing another delicious lasagna recipe.

Like traditional lasagna, this vegetable lasagna is a labour of love.

This ain’t no 30-minute meal kinda thing. This homemade veggie lasagna is a proper Sunday supper or a special occasion meal. Feel me?

This time of year I crave all the comfort food.

And one of my fave things is lasagna.

I mean, cheese, carbs and a rich tomato sauce; what’s not to love?

And, though it is a labour of love, homemade lasagna is always worth it.

This recipe makes a big pan of lasagna, so it’s great if you have a crowd. 

I think one of my favourite parts about making anything like this is watching the cheese bubble in the oven. It’s hypnotic, isn’t it?

Ingredients for Vegetable Lasagna

• Lots and lots of veggies (onion, eggplant, zucchini, mushrooms, bell pepper, carrots, celery, onion, spinach and fennel)
• Plenty of cheese (cottage cheese, Parmesan, fresh & shredded mozzarella cheese)
• Lasagna noodles
• Tomato sauce
• Tomato paste
• Lots of flavour-packed seasonings (like basil, parsley, oregano, chili flakes, bay leaves, nutmeg, garlic, salt and pepper)
• Water (rinse out your empty cans of tomatoes to get every last bit of that tomato goodness)
• Olive oil and butter
• Egg

How To Make This Recipe

So, essentially, this vegetable lasagna recipe has:

• Layers of roasted veggies
• Layers of sautéed mushrooms
• Creamy cottage cheese layers
• Veggie packed tomato sauce
• Plenty of shredded mozzarella cheese
• Fresh lasagna noodles

There’s lots of goodies packed in here but if you take each step at a time, there’s nothing to it! So, let’s get going!

Full details are in the recipe card below, but here are the basics:

Roast vegetables

1. Get your eggplant and zucchini ready for the oven first by peeling, slicing and placing on a parchment paper-lined sheet pan. Brush with olive oil and give a little sprinkle of salt and pepper.
2. Roast and set aside once done.

Cook mushrooms

1. To a pot, add some olive oil and butter. Once butter is melted, add sliced mushrooms.
2. Cook, season and set aside.

Make cottage cheese layer

1. Heat olive oil in a pot, and then add baby spinach and nutmeg and cook until just wilted.
2. Remove excess moisture in the spinach by placing it in a fine mesh sieve and pressing it against the sieve with a spoon (this is so your lasagna doesn’t get all watered down). The spinach isn’t actually going through the sieve (only water). Once done, chop the spinach.
3. Combine spinach with mozzarella, Parmesan, parsley, salt, pepper and egg.
4. Mix together and set aside.

Make lasagna sauce

1. Heat olive oil in a pot and add finely chopped carrots, celery, onion and fennel. Cook until softened. Season with a little salt and pepper. Add garlic and cook a little.
2. Stir in tomato paste and cook out a little.
3. Stir in bell peppers, tomatoes, herbs, crushed red pepper flakes, water and more salt and pepper.
4. Cook until thickened. Remove and discard bay leaves.

Looking good, right? You can taste test, if you like, with a little hunk of bread. Don’t have to twist my arm!

Assemble and bake

1. Preheat your oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Grab a deep lasagna pan and start assembling the lasagna. Add a little sauce to the bottom of the pan. Then, the order goes:
   • Fresh lasagna noodles.
   • ⅓ each of tomato sauce, roasted eggplant, roasted zucchini, sautéed mushrooms, cottage cheese mixture and 1.5 cups of shredded mozzarella cheese.
   • Do this two more times (repeating with the lasagna noodles).
   • Then add some fresh mozzarella over the last layer.
3. Place some wooden toothpicks (that have been first soaked in water before using) over top of the lasagna (sticking out for easy removal later) and bake. The toothpicks help prevent the aluminum foil from sticking to the cheese. Lost cheese stuck on aluminum foil and not in your pie hole is never a good thing, LOL. Note: Make sure you keep track of how many toothpicks you stick in the lasagna (and they are mostly sticking out) so you can easily remove them all later.
4. Carefully remove cover and toothpicks partway through and bake some more.
5. Let cool a little, garnish and serve up this scrumptious vegetable lasagna!

Best Pan To Use for Lasagna

This is a large lasagna with a lot of depth. 

I recommend going with a 9-inch x 13-inch deep lasagna pan.

Sides To Serve With Lasagna

This meatless lasagna recipe is delicious with any of these sides:

• Mixed green salad
• Roasted broccoli
• Garlic bread
• Focaccia or simply your favourite variety of bread

Tips For Making This Recipe

• I highly recommend using good quality canned tomatoes. I love San Marzano.
• A food processor is your friend here. Save time chopping those veg for the sauce by blitzing them with a food processor. Don’t have one? No worries! Simply finely chop.
• If you want to used canned mushrooms instead of fresh, that’s okay. You could skip cooking them. Just drain and use in the recipe.
• Fresh lasagna noodles were used so they literally went from the package to the casserole dish. You could use dried lasagna noodles should you wish. Simply cook them according to package instructions before using in this veg lasagna.
• If you don’t want to use fresh fennel, try a teaspoon and half or so of fennel seeds.

More Yummy Comfort Food Recipes

• Vegan Sloppy Joes
• Vegan Shepherd’s Pie
• Lentil Moussaka

If you make this vegetable lasagna recipe, be sure to leave a comment below!

This recipe was originally published in February 2016 but has been updated.