I’m trying to do more meat free meals, for our health and the environment and have been playing around with lentil recipes lately. This was really easy to make and tasted delicious.
For fussy family members I think the lentils hide very well as they are the same size as pieces of mince. You need to make sure the sauce has extra flavour and then they’ll never know!
You’ll need
250g dried lentils
1 can of chopped tomatoes
1 tub of passatta
mixed herbs
1 onion
2 cloves of garlic
vegetables (whichever you want to use)
lasagna sheets
2tbs butter
2 tbs plain flour
milk
cheese
Start by cooking the lentils with one can of chopped tomatoes, this gives it a greater taste than with water or stock.
Meanwhile cook the vegetables. Excuse the blurry photo, I must have been cooking really fast! But I used onion, peppers, mushrooms and broccoli.
Add in salt, pepper and mixed herbs. This is important as you are losing flavour from the meat, so you may need to ramp this up a bit!
This is what your lentils will look like when they are cooked. You want them just soft, think al dente pasta and the chopped tomatoes will have greatly thickened.
Add them to the vegetables with a tub of passata. I use the value range for this as well as the chopped tomatoes, there really isn’t any difference in taste and it saves a lot of money.
This is what the tomato sauce will then look like.
Go on to make your cheese sauce. Melt the butter in a pan and stir in the flour and cook for a few seconds. Then whisk in the milk and cook until thickened, stirring to make sure it doesn’t catch on the bottom. Add in your cheese and cook until it is melted. I haven’t included measurements for the milk or cheese as it depends how thick of runny you like it and how cheesy you want it!
Then construct your lasagna. I like to have 2 layers, tomato sauce, cheese sauce, pasta sheet, tomato sauce, pasta sheet topped with cheese sauce. Hope that makes sense!
Then cook it until a knife will easily go through the pasta, you might need to cover the top with foil to stop the top from burning. I then like to leave it to cool for 10 minutes before serving as it has a better consistency. And doesn’t burn your mouth!
Let me know if you make it and tag me in any photos you proudly put on social media of your lentil adventure!
Lots of love
Kimberley
