Creamy Vegan Lasagne

Serves 6

Prep: 30 mins

Cook time: 1-2 Hours

Don't be fooled by my incredibly bad photography and lack of presentation, this is genuinely one of the nicest Lasagnes I've ever had. A vegetable-loaded dish that's both carby and creamy with a dairy-free white sauce to boot and it's good. So good, in fact, that I couldn't even wait to plate it up and ate most of it out the dish (hence why there's no nice picture of the finished product.)

My mam used cheddar instead of vegan cheese... and ran out of lasagne sheets (see above...karma?) but she was equally as overjoyed with the sauce. One for all the family and all the foodie types.

UPDATE: I took the liberty of making (and devouring) another Lasagne - all in the name of art of course. Vegan cheese is notoriously hard to melt but this time I used ASDA free from cheddar and think using a Mozzarella alternative would be meltier.

Ingredients

• 4 tbsp Olive Oil

• 1 large onion, finely chopped

• 1 small aubergine, diced into 1.5cm cubes.

• 1 medium courgette diced into 1.5cm cubes

• 1 red pepper (seeds removed)diced into 1.5cm cubes

• 250g small chestnut mushrooms, thinly sliced

• 2 garlic cloves, crushed

• 100g/ dried red split lentils

• 2 x 400g tin chopped tomatoes

• 2 tsp Italian seasoning or dried oregano

• 1 tsp sugar, any kind

• Vegan Mozzarella/Cheese 300g (optional)

• 150g fresh young spinach leaves

• 9–10 dried lasagne sheets (ensure they are egg-free)

• salt and ground black pepper

For the white sauce:

• 3 tbsp sunflower oil

• 100g plain flour

• 1¼ pint unsweetened almond milk

• 3 tbsp nutritional yeast flakes

• 1 bay leaf

• ¼ tsp ground nutmeg

• salt and freshly ground black pepper

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 200C.

2. Heat the olive oil in a large, non-stick saucepan and fry onion for a few minutes or until softened and lightly browned. Add the courgette, pepper, aubergine and mushrooms and fry for another 12 minutes. Remember to stir!

3. Add the garlic and cook for a few seconds more, then stir in the red lentils, tomatoes, Italian seasoning, sugar and crumbled stock cube.

4. Refill one of the tomato tins with water (400ml/14fl oz) and pour into the pan. Stir well, bring to a simmer and leave to cook for 15 minutes, stirring regularly. After the time has passed, add the spinach one handful at a time until wilted in the sauce.

5. While the vegetables are simmering, make the white sauce. Heat the oil in a medium saucepan. When it is hot add the flour and cook, stirring all the time, for 1 minute. Stir in the milk, yeast, bay leaf and nutmeg.

6. Bring to a simmer and whisk constantly over a moderate heat for 5 minutes, or until smooth and thickened. Add seasoning (you'll need a heap ton of black pepper!)

7. Spread a third of the vegetable mixture over the base of an ovenproof lasagne dish and cover with a single layer of lasagne sheets. Top with another third of the vegetable mixture and a second layer of lasagne. Add cheese to every layer if you want to although the recipe doesn't call for it.

8. Pour over just under half of the white sauce, after removing the bay leaf, and very gently top with the remaining vegetable mixture. Finish with a final layer of lasagne and the rest of the white sauce.

9. Bake for 35–40 minutes, or the pasta has softened and the topping is nicely browned and bubbling. Stand for 5 minutes before cutting to allow the filling to settle.

10. EAT....

Original Recipe: BBC Foods