Zucchini Noodle Lasagna
It’s the middle of summer and if you’ve planted Zucchini in your garden, I’m sure you have all the zucchini you can harvest. You have more than enough. You are giving it away as fast as you can pick it. You can’t possibly manage to whip up another loaf of zucchini bread and for sure the others in your household can no longer eat one more bite of it…so what do you do with all of your excess? You make this grain free/guilt free version of an old favorite!
I’ll admit that traditional lasagna is amazing, but for someone like myself, the pasta/cheese combo can leave you incredibly bloated. One summer about 12 years ago when I had an abundance of zucchini, I had read that you could replace fettuchini noodles with zucchini noodles. What on earth is a zucchini noodle? A zucchini noodle is simply a flat ribbon of zucchini made with a vegetable peeler…this was brilliant and started me on my journey with zucchini noodles or as my kids like to call them impasta (combo of imposter and pasta for those who didn’t get it right away!) Pretty clever, no? Well at least I think it is and it’s a funny gimmick that draws my kids in to eat a mountain of veggies! I started off combining zoodles with homemade alfredo sauce, then pesto sauce and then I got the crazy idea to try making a lasagna!
I have recently purchased the Spiral slicer to make spaghetti noodles from my zucchini, but to create this simple lasagna noodle, you only need a vegetable peeler…and a ginormous zucchini. You know the kind I’m talking about. The kind where picking it up off the garden floor is likely to throw your back out:
This is only half of the monster which I actually cut in half again and used just 1/4 of the zucchini, so I can easily get 1-2 more zucchini lasagnas out of the remaining sections!
First, peel the green outer layer and scoop out the seeds. Next peel ribbons until you are all the way through.
Now you are ready to assemble the lasagna using my from scratch marinara sauce!
- 2 Cups Zucchini Noodles
- 32 oz Ricotta Cheese
- 1 1/2 Cups Grated Parmesan Cheese
- I Pkg Frozen Spinach
- 3-4 Cloves of Garlic, minced
- Salt and Pepper to Taste
- Dash of Nutmeg
- 3 Eggs
- 16 oz Pasta Sauce
- 16 oz Mild Ground Italian Sausage, Cooked
- Mozzarella Cheese
- Preheat oven to 375.
- In a bowl combine all the ingredients for the filling. Mix until all ingredients are combined.
- In a skillet, cook Italian sausage until brown, then add pasta sauce.
- Now you can begin assembling the lasagna with a bottom layer of zucchini noodles placed flat in a lasagna pan.
- Next add a layer of filling and smooth out so it coverts the entire surface.
- Add sauce mixture and a layer of mozzarella cheese.
- Repeat until you run out of ingredients. (I usually end up with 2 layers)
