My Ultimate Hidden Vegetable Lasagne
Welcome to my ultimate hidden vegetable lasagne, the recipe where I show some of the tricks I use to boost the vegetable content of the meals I feed my family.
Honestly, looking at the picture below would you believe this lasagne recipe contains 5 times more vegetables than meat, that's why it's called a hidden vegetable lasagne I suppose.
Hidden Vegetable Lasagne or Lasagna?
Is this a hidden vegetable lasagne or lasagna? To be honest I had to use google and call a friend to decide if this recipe should be called a Lasagne or Lasagna. I hope I have got it right.
From what I have gleaned Lasagna refers to a single sheet of pasta, and then lasagne refers to a dish made up of layers of lasagna. As my recipe is layers of hidden vegetable meat sauce, sneaky vegetable containing bechamel and lasagna, I am pretty confident that what I have created is a hidden vegetable lasagne recipe. But honestly, I am still a little confused.
What vegetables are hidden in my kids lasagne?
These are the veggies I have hidden in my kids' lasagne. Half a cauliflower made into a cauliflower alfredo sauce, a stack of spinach, plenty of mushrooms, onion, carrot, and lentils. Over 2.5 kgs of vegetable content, in fact, alongside the 500g of mince.
To get so much hidden vegetables into my kid-friendly lasagna I use a blender/smoothie maker. Savoury smoothies are brilliant in cooking. I whip up 2 smoothie combinations for this hidden vegetable recipe, a tomato and spinach version and a tomato and mushroom smoothie. These get added to the meat sauce to make this a truly hidden vegetable lasagne.
The final hack is one you may have seen on my blog before, I use it in my healthy macaroni and cheese, the trick is cauliflower purée added to the bechamel sauce. In my macaroni and cheese recipe, I masterfully add zucchini to the sauce as well, it is a trick worth checking out!
Hidden vegetable recipes are they a good idea?
This brings me to my final word on hidden vegetable recipes. Should we actually be hiding vegetables in our kids food?
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We now know that we should be aiming for 8-10 servings of vegetables and fruit per day for health benefits, that means we probably need to do both!We need to be serving vegetable laden recipes as well as veggies loud and proud on the plate, as side dishes and snacks.
I call this a hidden vegetable recipe, but it should probably be called a loaded vegetable recipe, yet it is hard to detect the vegetables. I am doing it more for increasing my families veggie intake than to combat picky eating. Although if this hidden vegetable recipe helps someones, picky eater, to eat better, then I call it a win.
You can read more about my thoughts on the topic of getting kids to eat vegetables To Sneak Or Not To Sneak
Kids Dinner Ideas
Lasagne is always a winner as a kids dinner idea, and you will find the full recipe for this below. If you are after more ideas, please check out the Dinner Ideas section on my website, or these are some of my most popular kid-friendly dinner ideas
- Healthy Macaroni Cheese
- Pork sausage, apple, and sweet potato traybake
- Honey Soy Chicken Tray Bake
- Chicken Spinach Pasta Bake
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Ingredients
Beef and Veggie Sauce
- 2 tablespoon olive oil
- ½ brown onion (finely diced) 85 grams
- 2 small carrot (finely diced or grated) 50 grams
- 1 small zucchini (finely diced or grated) 100 grams
- 1 clove garlic (crushed, smashed or minced)
- ½ pound ground beef 250 grams
- 3 cups Passata 750 mLs Tomato Purée
- 1 cup spinach leaves 30 grams, a very good handful or 2.
- 1 cup Mushrooms 100 grams / 3.5 oz
- ½ cup red lentils 90 grams, rinsed
- 1 Tablespoon Italian seasoning mixed dried herbs
- ¾ cups water/stock ¾-1 ½ cups as needed
- 2 teaspoons balsamic vinegar or red wine vinegar
Cauliflower Bechamel Sauce
- ¼ head cauliflower 300 grams
- 3 Tablespoons olive oil (or butter)
- ¼ cup flour
- 2 cups Milk (warmed)
- 1 cup grated cheese increase depending on how rich and cheesy you want it
Other
- 8-9 instant lasagne sheets 9 oz, 250 grams
Instructions
Beef and Veggie Sauce
- Add oil to a large heavy based pan, heat
- Add the onion, carrot, and zucchini (grated or diced), sauté until soft.
- Add garlic, sauté for a further 2 minutes. I just smash the whole cloves of garlic with the blade of my knife, and add them pretty much whole.
- Add the ground beef, breaking up the clumps, cooking until browned. Once browned, add the grated mushrooms.
- While the mince is cooking move on to making a smoothie. Blend the tomato puree with the spinach until smooth (and the mushrooms if you prefer to blend rather than grate them).
- Add the tomato/spinach smoothie to the pan.
- Rinse the lentils, add to the pan.
- Add the dried herbs
- Simmer uncovered for 20 minutes. Watch the sauce, you may need to add ¾ to 1 ½ cups of water or stock to allow the lentils to soften. The lentils absorb liquid as they cook. I find it better to add the water as needed, so that you don't end up with a really sloppy mixture at the end.
- Finish off the meat sauce by seasoning with salt and pepper as desired and a dash of vinegar. The vinegar brings back the freshness.
Cauliflower Bechamel Sauce
- While the meat sauce is simmering, roughly chop the cauliflower, steam until tender then purée, I usually use a stick blender for the cauliflower.
- Now to make the bechamel sauce, start by warming the milk, you can do this in the microwave if you wish.
- In a saucepan heat the oil. Add the flour and cook for 2 mins.
- Gradually add the warm milk mixing continuously, you will end up with a smooth thick sauce, add the grated cheese. Once melted through, stir in the cauliflower purée
Assemble the Lasagna
- Start with a single layer of meat sauce, (this stops the pasta sticking to the dish). Top with pasta, then a single layer of white sauce, top with pasta again, and repeat, (Meat, pasta, white sauce, pasta). Keep going until everything is used up. You can finish on a meat sauce or white sauce layer as the top, it's up to you!
- Sprinkle the top layer with a little extra cheese
- Bake for 35 mins in the oven at 180 degrees Celsius, or 360 Fahrenheit
- Allow to cool for 5-10 minutes before you slice and serve, it holds together a little better once it has all stopped bubbling
Notes
Nutrition
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Love this recipe but suggest using a stockpot as huge.. I also froze it in tinfoil trays. Got three large trays.
I have very large fry pans! lol