When you have kiddos who can’t have gluten or dairy, one meal you miss out on is lasagna. But lasagna is one of my most favorite meals. For a gal who was born on Garfield’s birthday, losing lasagna was not an option.

So, even though three of my kiddos cannot handle the cheesy noodly goodness of lasagna, I decided to make one today. And make a mock lasagna for my kids, and hope it turned out.

Now I have to admit that I really did not think this was going to taste a lot like lasagna. But I figured I could try, and it would probably be good anyway. I was amazed, however, when it tasted just like lasagna.

I will give you my recipe, though mine filled an 11 x 15 baking dish, so feel free to cut it in half, or make more than one smaller one to freeze for a quick meal another day.

Ingredients:

24 oz bag of rice macaroni or spiral pasta

4 cups of tomato sauce

2 lbs ground beef

1 Tbsp Italian Seasonings

1Tbsp fresh garlic

1 tsp dried onion

1 tsp salt

1 tsp pepper

2 zucchinis (mine were sliced and frozen,  homestead winter veggie storage)

1 cup nutritional yeast

1/4 cup olive oil

1 Tbsp apple cider vinegar

1 cup coconut milk

First I set the pot of water to boil for the pasta. While that started I fried up the ground beef with all of the spices.

Once that was done I worked on the vegan cheese sauce. I tossed the zucchinis into the blender with the nutritional yeast, olive oil, Apple cider vinegar and coconut milk. Blend until pureed and mixed together well. (The nutritional yeast is the key here. I have made other vegan cheeses with it, but had never tried it with zucchinis before)

Once everything is done, the noodles are cooked and drained, the beef is browned, and the cheese is blended, put it all together as you would a regular lasagna. Smear some tomato sauce in the bottom of your baking dish, sprinkle some noodles, beef, cheese sauce, and repeat layers, leaving just enough noodles and cheese sauce for the final layer. I usually do four layers, and then top it with the last of the noodles and then cheese sauce on top. This picture shows it raw.

Bake at 350 degrees for 45 min to an hour, until it is just starting to brown on top. This picture show it cooked.

Now, like I said, I made a traditional lasagna at the same time so that I could see how they tasted in comparison.  When they were done I took a bite of each one and was amazed. The traditional lasagna, loaded with mozzarella and romano was amazing. But the zucchini cheese lasagna tasted nearly the same! I was floored. Needless to say, the kids loved it, and asked when I was gonna try my hand at some other cheesy Italian favorites.  Total win.

Now I just need to find actual lasagna noodles that are gluten free.

Oh, and because I forgot, the asparagus was sauteed in 1 Tbsp of coconut oil, with a sprinkling of pepper and pink Himalayan salt, for a couple minutes until just tender.