Vegan Lasagne recipe

Hiya folks, just a quick post tonight to give you a new vegan recipe.... We love lasagne in this house and I have tried numerous vegan lasagne recipes involving sauces made from cashews or coconut milk or pureed squash, but nothing ever compares to the real thing. It seems to me that the problem is mainly the substitute 'cheese ' sauce. It occurred to me that there is no need to faff around with all sorts of weird and wonderful vegetables when there are lots of lovely milk substitutes out there that could be used to make a bechamel type sauce. So I gave it a shot and....

Voila! A seriously delicious lasagne which we thought was every bit as good as the real thing.  So here's the recipe...I will definitely be making this again!

For the bolognais sauce:

1 red onion, chopped

3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

1 carrot, peeled and chopped into small cubes

1 courgette, chopped into small cubes

1/2 a small aubergine, chopped into small cubes

5 sweet bite peppers, chopped

Handful of chestnut mushrooms, roughly chopped

2 dozen cherry tomatoes, halved

1 tin chopped tomatoes

3 Tablespoons vegan sun dried tomato paste

Good glug of balsamic vinegar

1 tsp oregano

handful of red lentils

1 tsp coconut oil for frying

For the bechamel sauce:

3 Tablespoons plain flour (use rice flour if you're gluten free)

Good glug of olive oil

800 ml unsweetened almond milk

2 large tsp dijon mustard

3 large tablespoons nutritional yeast

Scant tsp apple cider vinegar

1 packet of lasagne sheets (use rice lasagne if gluten free)

Method: in a heavy based pan, heat the coconut oil and sauté the onion, garlic and carrot gently till softening. Add the remainder of the chopped veg apart from the cherry tomatoes and mushrooms. After 10 mins or so sautéing the veg add the mushrooms and tomatoes and cook the lot till the tomatoes are nice and soft and the juices begin to come out. Add your tomato paste, sauté for a few minutes, then add the tinned tomatoes, balsamic vinegar, oregano and lentils. Cover and simmer till the lentils are soft, stirring occasionally.

Meanwhile, make the bechamel sauce. Heat the oil in a medium saucepan, then add the flour and remove from the heat, stirring constantly. Begin adding the almond milk a drop at a time, stirring constantly to make a smooth paste. Once all the milk is added, return to a gentle heat and stir until the sauce begins to thicken. Add the mustard, nutritional yeast and vinegar and stir to combine. 

Assemble your lasagne. In a lasagne dish, add a layer of the bolognais,  then a layer of lasagne (check the pack first to see if it needs to be precooked...The stuff I use can go straight in), then a layer of bechamel sauce. Continue till all the ingredients are used up, finishing with a layer of bechamel sauce.  Cook on 160° till golden brown on top.

Easy! Hope you enjoy it as much as we did xxx