Ricotta & Spaghetti Squash Lasagna Bake
Hmm... the bakes and warming bowls that the cooler months bring - oh how "warm hug" like they are. This recipe fits into the mentioned category perfectly, being a host of familiar, yet strikingly wonderful flavours and fascinating textures. Having scene the ol' spaghetti squash hop around the recipe blog sphere for some time now, I have been dying to get my hands on one. Yet, like more things in Melbs, it was a while before I landed my eyes on one of them, let alone found a price tag that wasn't jaw dropping (and not in a nice way). So it's been a journey (a first world one at that) for my taste-buds to be blessed with the presence of spaghetti-like strands of wonder, yet it was so worth the wait. While I definitely plan on using this crazy veg in a host of ways, for now I am rather pleased with this bake that is triple tested and omni-family approved. Enjoy!
Ingredients
- 1 large spaghetti squash
- 375 block of firm tofu
- juice of 1 lemon
- leaves from 1 bunch of basil
- 1 tsp onion powder
- 2 tsp minced garlic
- 2 tbsp nutritional yeast
- 1 tbsp dried oregano
- salt & pepper
- 100g fresh spinach
- 1 x 700g jar of passata
- 1 x 250g box of GF or wholemeal lasagna sheets
- 2 tbsp vegan Parmesan
Method
- Pre-heat the oven to 200C fan-forced.
- Grab your spaghetti squash, and using a large sharp knife cut it into quarters (from top to bottom, and then around the middle). Place face down on a lined baking tray and cook in the pre-heated oven for 45 minutes or until tender.
- Meanwhile, prepare your ricotta by placing next eight ingredients (down to the salt & pepper) into a blender, or food processor if that's what you have, blending until smooth and it's adopted a green hue. Grab a plastic zip-lock bag and fill it with the "cheese" and set aside until needed, cutting a 2 cm whole in one of the bottom corners.
- When the squash is cooked, begin to build up your bake. Grab a large lasagna dish and start with a layer of passatta 1/4 of spaghetti squash (obtained through raking a fork through the flesh). Put down a layer of spinach with some passatta, then more pasta sheets, a layer of 1/3 of the ricotta, passatta and another 1/4 of the spaghetti squash, then building up the layers from there as you please, using up the filling ingredients. Make sure your final layer however includes at least a 1/4 of the squash, passatta and thick blobs or squirts (see video) or the ricotta.
- Bake in the oven for 30 minutes with a sheet of foil across the top, then an additional 10 minutes without.
- Sprinkle with the vegan Parmesan and serve. For best results, let sit for 10 minutes before devouring. It's so delicious, I promise you!