Roasted Vegetable Lasagne – VeganMoFo Day 4

Today’s VeganMoFo prompt is all about the worst catered meal you’ve ever had.  When you’re vegan, often it seems that chefs just go “umm?” and throw a vegetable at a plate. In general, I prefer to eat out at places that specify vegan options – or even better, vegan only places – but that’s not always possible. Sometimes, you just have to grin and bear it.

I can’t seem to find a picture of what, in my opinion, was the worst catered meal I’ve had, but I’ll describe it to you. As you may have gathered from the title of this post, it was a lasagne. Lasagnes are usually great, right? Pasta with a nice creamy sauce…mmm. Except this lasagne had no pasta. In place of pasta, it had sheets of celeriac. I really don’t like celery, or celeriac and, yeah, it wasn’t ideal.

lasagne

So, I decided to make my own version. A better version. I kept with the theme of vegetables – including lots of vegetables roasted for this lasagne, but used actual pasta, and a version of my cheese sauce to go with it. As you can probably tell, I didn’t have the best luck with the photos for this post – the light was dark (oh, autumn…) and lasagne unfortunately just isn’t that pretty. It was tasty, though!

lasagne4

The roasted veggies that go inside are pretty good looking though, don’t you think? I had a hard time not just eating them fresh out of the oven. They get roasted first, then cooked into a tomatoey sauce, which is used as the lasagne sauce. Then, you make the cheese sauce, arrange it all in a pan, and bake it in the oven!

Roasted Vegetable Lasagne


Ingredients

    For the vegetable sauce
  • 1 red onion
  • 1 white onion
  • 2 large courgettes
  • 2 peppers (whichever colour you like!)
  • 250g cherry or baby plum tomatoes
  • 2 tbsp olive oil
  • 1 tsp dried oregano
  • 1 tsp dried thyme
  • Salt + Pepper
  • 1 tin chopped tomatoes
  • 1 tbsp tomato puree
  • 250ml vegetable stock
  • For the cheese sauce
  • 1 pack (350g) silken tofu
  • 3 cloves garlic, minced
  • 3 tbsp oil
  • 350ml vegetable stock
  • 2 tbsp nutritional yeast
  • 40g cornflour (cornstarch)
  • 1 tsp salt
  • Also

  • 1 box lasagne sheets

Directions

    Preheat the oven to 200C/400F
  1. Begin by chopping all your vegetables (up to and including the cherry tomatoes) into bitesize pieces. Don’t worry too much about making them even – just make sure they’re roughly similar sizes.
  2. Place the vegetables on baking sheets (you’ll probably need two) and mix through the oregano, thyme, salt and pepper, and olive oil.
  3. Put the baking trays in the preheated oven for 45-50 minutes, stirring midway through, until all the vegetables are cooked. Leave the oven on.
  4. Once the vegetables are cooked, add them to a saucepan along with the 250ml stock, the tomato puree, and the chopped tomato tin. Stir, and heat through gently.
  5. Next, make the cheese sauce. In a saucepan, fry the minced garlic until it just starts to brown – keep an eye on it as it happens quickly!
  6. Remove from the heat, and add the remaining ingredients.
  7. Using either a stick blender, or a countertop blender, blend until smooth.
  8. Place the saucepan back on a low heat, and whisk until the sauce starts to thicken.
  9. Next, assemble the lasagne. Put a bit of the vegetable sauce on the bottom of your dish, followed by lasagne sheets, followed by cheese sauce. Repeat until you reach the top of your dish – making sure to end with cheese sauce.
  10. Place in the oven for 30 minutes, until the lasagne sheets are cooked (you can test this easily with a fork).

6 thoughts on “Roasted Vegetable Lasagne – VeganMoFo Day 4

  1. I’m sorry but I burst out laughing at the celeriac revelation! I absolutely hate celeriac, I can’t even imagine how I would have reacted. Good choice in reverting back to classic pasta sheets for your improved take on it!

    Liked by 1 person

  2. Clare

    Celeriac! That’s my worst nightmare. You expect an yummy lasagna and you get celeriac. Scary.

    I should point out that I’m allergic to celeriac, I’m not afraid of vegetables…

    Liked by 1 person

  3. juliemokrzycki

    I would have been so annoyed to be served a pasta-less lasagne, haha! Your roasted veggies look so good; I’m sure they are amazing in your improved lasagne!

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Right? To be fair, I had a really good lasagne made with courgette instead of pasta at a veg restaurant once and I didn’t even notice it wasn’t pasta till halfway through! But yeah, this wasn’t good.

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