I thought I’d create a recipe tonight made of a few of my favourite things. My little boy has been asking for a lasagne for sometime, and as we’re cutting our grain intake, I created this version of the classic lasagne with layers of aubergine (eggplant to my friends in the US!), thick beef ragu and a rich creamy wheat free cheese sauce. No oven required!
This pasta free lasagne recipe is a little fiddly and takes sometime, however it’s totally worth it! it’s simply delicious.
Ingredients
Serves 4
For the lasagne:
- 500g of quality mince beef, grass fed and organic
- 3x aubergines (eggplant!), try to choose the fat ones, skinny ones are no good for this
- 1x tin of good quality chopped tomatoes
- 1x small jar of passata
- 1x block of 300g halloumi cheese (try to get the pre cut round slices, this cheese is tricky to slice yourself)
- 4x shallots
- 2x cloves of garlic
- 1x carrot
- 1x teaspoon cracked black pepper
- 2x pinches of salt
- 1x pinch of thyme
- 1x pinch of oregano (Warning! oregano is a powerful herb, you can easily spoil with too much)
- 10oml wheat and/or diary free cheese sauce (can be purchased from health food stores)
For the salad:
- 1x large bunch of seasonal leaves
- 1x large avocado
- 1x punnet of tomatoes
- 2x tablespoons of olive oil
Method
Being organised is the key to this recipe. There’s a lot of individual tasks to do but it’s worth the effort
- Chop your carrot, shallots and cloves of garlic as small as you can get them and place into a moderately heated pan with a dash of olive oil and a dash of butter
- After 2 mins, turn the heat to low and let the carrots, shallots and onion gently fry for 4-5 mins until the shallots look translucent but not brown
- Add the beef mince to the pan and bring the heat back up to moderate
- Brown the mince until you can see no more pink
- Add 1 tin of chopped tomatoes and the passata, mix and reduce heat till you have a gentle bubble/simmer
- Add a teaspoon of pepper
- Add a pinch of salt
- Add the thyme and oregano
- Stir well and leave the mixture to reduce down to a thick consistency whilst stirring occasionally. This will usually take around 10-15 minutes. If it’s too wet, just let it carry on, too dry, add a little water
- Whilst the ragu is reducing, prepare your aubergine. Top and tail them, put in the fridge for other uses (soup? on toast?), we’re only interested in the thickest part. Slice 12 discs of aubergine (3 per person)
- Prepare your side salads of leaves, sliced tomatoes and avocado and place onto serving plates
- Make up your cheese sauce and leave on a low heat to keep hot, stir frequently to prevent a skin from forming
- Place some oil into a hot pan, and fry the aubergine disks (you may need to do two batches, that’s ok)
- Once they are crispy each side, place onto some kitchen towel and gently press a towel over the top. Aubergine suck up liquids so it’s important to try remove some of that
- If your halloumi is not already, slice into half – two thirds cm slices and place in the hot pan
- Halloumi does not take long to cook, flip it until it’s golden brown on both sides
- It’s time to construct your lasagne! place one aubergine disk as the base, add a heaped tablespoon of the mince, layer another aubergine and mince, then one more. Finally spoon over the final mince layer with the cheese sauce and top with the sliced fried halloumi
- Ready to eat
I really hope you enjoy making this, please give it a go and leave me a comment at the bottom of the page.
