Classic Lasagna

So I’m starting with an old classic: lasagna. Traditionally the pervue of dinner parties across the ages, it’s a crowd pleaser and most definitely something people would say they couldn’t do without if they turned vegan.

In fact, lasagna is seen as one of the go-to meals if you have a vegetarian coming for dinner. It’s almost a veggie cliche. However, vegans wouldn’t necessarily get a look in, with its creamy bechamel sauce and crispy cheese topping. With my first challenge I shall show you that a creamy, crispy and tasty lasagna can be made vegan with minimal effort- and you won’t miss dairy or meat at all.

Why make this

1. It’s incredibly straight forward
2. It’s very flexible – put absolutely anything you like in it
3. It keeps particularly well – it’ll last for up to 3-4 days in the fridge (great chilled as a packed lunch, or freeze for a quick midweek dinner)

How to make this

Ingredients

For the Pasta:

• Approx 10 sheets of 100% durum wheat lasagna (supermarket own brands are usually durum wheat by default)

For the Ragu:

• A jar of your favourite ragu or pasta sauce (come on, this is meant to be easy! I don’t know anyone who makes a ragu from scratch and most of the major brands are vegan)
• 1 red onion
• Several cloves of garlic (to your own tastes)
• Assorted vegetables (anything you fancy)
• In this version:
  • 2 small courgettes (homegrown I hasten to add!)
  • 1 pepper
  • Frozen sweet corn
  • Chopped artichoke hearts
  • Chopped sundried tomatoes
  • I didn’t have mushrooms to hand, but they work particularly well
• A can of beans (optional)
• A couple of dashes of vegan Worcestershire sauce
• A couple of glugs of red wine
• A packet of vegan mince (I used Frys but any brand will do)

Fry’s Vegan Mince (sourced from Holland & Barratt)

White sauce:

• 750ml of soy or nut milk
• 50g cornflour (plain flour will work, also)
• 50g vegan margarine (eg: Vitalite)
• 2tsps of Dijon mustard
• A few pinches of nutritional yeast
• Seasoning

Method

The method is split into 3 broad steps:

1. The Ragu
Fry the onions and garlic in a little canola oil. Once translucent, add the frozen mince and stir. Fry off the mince for a while to loosen and defrost it. Then add the wroscesyeshire sauce and a glug of wine.

Vegan mince with onions and garlic

As the wine reduces, toss in the vegetables- stagger them so those that need slightly longer like courgettes go in first.

Once the veg has softened slightly tip in the jar of ragu sauce and any beans you want to add. Add another glug of wine if you’d like and stir well. Cover and simmer for about 20mins or until the veg have cooked through.

Simmering ragu

2. The white sauce

This is where the magic happens!

This recipe is no different to an omnivorous white sauce. For the milk and margarine could equally be regular milk and butter.

Melt the margarine in a pan and stir in the flour with a wooden spoon.

The mixture should be like sticky sand but not have any lumps- this happens fast so stir constantly. Once it forms a big clump, add in the milk slowly. The key here is to add a little and stir well to thin the butter flour mixture without getting lumps. Switch the wooden spoon to a whisk.

Continue to stir until the sauce begins to thicken. After about 2-3 mins add in pinches of nutritional yeast, the mustard and the seasoning. Continue to stir. The nutritional yeast here will enable the white sauce to brown on top. It will also help it to thicken if you’re having trouble.

The white sauce

Continue to stir and add nutritional yeast until it’s thickened. You’ll be able to know when it’s thick enough as you’ll be able to see the trails of the whisk as you stir. It should still be pourable.

3. Assembling with the pasta

Line the bottom of the dish with roughly one third of the ragu. Then spread roughly one third of the white sauce on top of this. Next, cover this with a layer of pasta. Repeat for the next layer (ragu, white sauce, pasta) and then finish with a ragu and white sauce only layer.

Cover with tin foil and bake in the oven for around 30 minutes. After around 30 mins, remove the foil and bake uncovered for a further 15 mins. The top should be golden.

Fresh from the oven

Enjoy!

Plated and ready to go!

Next Steps

I urge you to try this recipe and revel in its flexibility and simplicity. Even if you’re not quite up to making the ragu vegan, at least try and make the vegan white sauce – you won’t be able to tell the difference!