Hidden Veggie Lasagna with Ground Turkey

This is a post about making an easy veggie lasagna with ground turkey. The written post is just below, but you can scroll down and continue reading for more information.

INGREDIENTS

1/2 lb of ground turkey

28 oz can crushed tomatoes

4 garlic cloves, peeled

3 shallots or 1 yellow onion (chop the onion if using)

1 packed cup mixed greens or spring mix

1 carrot or parsnip, chopped

3 Tbsps extra virgin olive oil

1 Tbsp italian seasoning

Salt, to taste

For the lasagna:

1/2 lb dry lasagna, about 9 sheets

8 oz shredded or sliced cheese

Ricotta cheese, as desired; optional but recommended

PREPARATION

Prepare the ingredients so you have everything ready to go. Afterwards, add the veggies to a food processor or blender.

In the blender/processor, process the veg until they're in small pieces. The more blended, the more "hidden" they'll be!

After that, add the crushed tomatoes to a large pot or stock pan; I used a dutch oven. Be sure it has a lid; tomato sauces tend to explode and make a mess when simmering.

Add the spices and veggies to the tomatoes and place on the stove top. You can also do this in the oven, but I'd only recommend that in winter.

Cook the veg and tomatoes, covered over medium-low, for 1-2 hours. Again, a longer cook time will soften the veg and make them harder to notice. The parsnip in mine was a bit raw after an hour, so I did 90 minutes.

Once the vegetables are softened, add the ground turkey. It will cook in the oven, so just break it apart here and you'll be fine. Also add the EVOO.

Finally, you're ready to build! Add a bit of sauce to the pan, then add 1/3 of your pasta. I broke up the sheets to get even coverage in my 8x8 pan.

Next add 1/3 of the sauce. If you're using ricotta, add it here. I forgot to buy some, so I'm just using sauce, pasta, and cheese on top.

After the sauce/ricotta, add another third of the pasta sheets. Repeat this building until you're out of ingredients, then top with cheese.

To help illustrate, I made this quick layout of the pan I had:

---top of the pan---

layer of cheese

a third of sauce

a third of pasta

a third of sauce

a third of pasta

a third of sauce

a third of pasta

small bit of sauce

---bottom of pan---

Again, if you're using ricotta, add it between the layers of pasta and sauce.

Before we top with cheese, we need to make sure the dry pasta sheets actually cook. For that, we need to add broth or water to just above the pasta.

You can also use oven-ready lasagna, but I've never had an issue with regular dry sheets. I just made a quick "broth" with water and Worcestershire sauce.

Once you've added the liquid, top with your cheese. I used swiss since this is a low-sodium lasagna, but you can use whatever you prefer.

Now you'll bake the lasagna, covered tightly with foil, for 45-60 minutes. If you're paranoid about under cooking, 60 minutes should be just fine.

Remember to cover the lasagna or it definitely won't cook properly! Also uncover and broil the cheese before serving for extra flavor.

A lot of my cheese stuck to the foil, so I added extra. Made it pretty greasy, but it was also great, so I can't complain!

This recipe makes one lasagna to completely fill an 8x8 pan. This should give you 9 fairly large servings if cut into squares.

For best results, let lasagna cool and refrigerate before cutting with a sharp knife. This will give you nice, clean edges on each square.

ADDITIONAL INFO

Thanks for checking out this recipe! Here I'll go into a bit more detail about what you may want to do - or not do - when making this lasagna.

First of all, I really can't recommend the parsnip. It's all I had, but it did not jive well with the thyme, so use carrot if you have it.

I also used my own herbs instead of an italian seasoning. If you're curious, I used:

1 tsp dry basil

1/2 tsp dry oregano

1/4 tsp ground thyme

1/4 tsp ground cayenne

While this isn't quite a Tablespoon, it wasn't quite enough seasoning either. Except the thyme, which always seems to be too much...

I mentioned it briefly, but this is a low sodium lasagna. You'll definitely want to add salt if you want something "normal" and not lo-so.

You'd probably be fine with a bit of salt added to the sauce and using salted tomatoes and a more traditional cheese, like mozzarella.

Speaking of sodium, I would actually use a low-sodium broth to cover the lasagna before baking. Anything more salty might be too much.

If you only have "regular" salted broth, you can mix it with water to lower the salinity.

I only used 1/2 lb of ground turkey, which works for me, but this easily supports a full pound if you want the extra protein. You could also use ground pork or beef, but you'll want to cut back on the EVOO depending on how fatty your replacement protein is.

You may have noticed this is more of a technique than a strict recipe. Besides covering the dry lasagna with liquid so it cooks, you can do just about anything, so use your imagination!

Finally, I am saddened to say I lost the final, plated picture of lasagna. I waited a few days to take the pic, it wasn't with the others, and is officially MIA.

Most of the lasagna got frozen alongside some chili, but the once-was lasagna square looked even better after plating.

That does it for this post! I hope you found it enjoyable. If you end up making it, let me know how it went in the comments! If you want a similar recipe, check out

my very veggie meatloaf. You can also follow me on Pinterest to see what food trends I'm getting into!

Thanks for reading :)