Adam Liaw’s one vegetarian lasagne recipe (with seasonal variations) to rule them all

Name: Adam Liaw’s one vegetarian lasagne recipe (with seasonal variations) to rule them all
Cook time: 1 h 30 min
Yield: 6-8
Cuisine: Italian
Ingredients: 125ml (½ cup) olive oil; about 8 cups chopped seasonal vegetables (see notes); salt and black pepper, to season; about 400g dried lasagne sheets; 450g (2 cups) grated mozzarella; 40g (½ cup) grated parmesan

What’s red, white and delicious all over? This pasta bake, where you get to choose your own vegie adventure.

Adam Liaw

May 8, 2024

Time:1-2 hoursServes:6-8

One vegetarian lasagne recipe to rule them all? Vegetables are seasonal, so a vegetable lasagne should be seasonal, too. So this isn’t one recipe but four (or possibly eight, if you read on). Realistically, you’re not making a vegetable lasagne every week or even every month, but why not shoot for once, each season?

This recipe gives you the choice of a tomato sauce base or a white ricotta base to showcase your vegetables. Pick the base you prefer, choose your vegetables, and away you go.

Ingredients

125ml (½ cup) olive oil
about 8 cups chopped seasonal vegetables (see notes)
salt and black pepper, to season
about 400g dried lasagne sheets
450g (2 cups) grated mozzarella
40g (½ cup) grated parmesan

Tomato sauce base

60ml (¼ cup) olive oil
2 brown onions, diced
4 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
125ml (½ cup) white wine
3 x 400ml cans crushed tomatoes
2 tsp vegetable stock powder, plus extra to season
1 tsp dried oregano
a handful of basil, sage or parsley leaves, roughly chopped (optional)

White ricotta base

2 tbsp olive oil
2 brown onions, diced
4 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
1 tsp vegetable stock powder
500g soft ricotta
1 tsp dried oregano

Bechamel

100g butter
100g plain flour
1.2 litres milk
½ tsp vegetable stock powder

Method

PREPARING THE VEGETABLES

Heat a large frying pan over medium heat and add a little of the oil. Fry the seasonal vegetables, one type of vegetable at a time, until browned and cooked through. Remove from the pan to a medium bowl.

TOMATO SAUCE (IF USING)

Heat a large, lidded saucepan over medium heat. Add the oil, onions and garlic and fry for about 10 minutes until the onions are well softened but not browned. Add the wine and bring to a simmer. Simmer until the wine stops smelling alcoholic. Add the tomatoes, stock powder, oregano, basil (if using), 2 cups of water and about 1 teaspoon of salt. Cover and cook for about 30 minutes, then remove from the heat. Stir the vegetables into the sauce, season with salt and pepper, if needed, and set aside.

WHITE RICOTTA BASE (If USING)

Return the pan you’ve used to fry the vegetables to the stove over medium heat. Add the oil, onions and garlic and fry for about 5 minutes until softened and starting to brown. Remove from the heat. Mix the stock powder, ricotta and oregano in a large bowl. Stir the vegetables into the ricotta, season with salt and pepper, if needed, and set aside.

BECHAMEL

Heat a medium saucepan over medium heat and add the butter and flour. Cook until foamy, then add the milk a little at a time to create a smooth white sauce. Season with salt and vegetable stock powder and set aside.

ASSEMBLING THE LASAGNE

Step 1
Bring a medium pot of water to a boil and season with salt. Heat your oven to 180C fan-forced (200C conventional). Take a 25cm x 35cm baking dish about 7cm deep and spread a little of the vegetable mixture in the base. Blanch the lasagne sheets in the water for a few minutes until they are soft enough to bend easily but are not completely softened.
Step 2
Cover the bottom veg layer with a layer of pasta. Add about a quarter of the vegetable mixture in an even layer and then spread with a thin blanket of bechamel. Repeat three times, finishing with a layer of pasta and about a third of the remaining bechamel. Scatter with the cheeses. Add ¼ cup of the pasta boiling water around the sides of the dish and insert two toothpicks into the centre of the lasagne, sticking out. Cover with a sheet of foil and bake for 30 minutes, then remove the foil and toothpicks and grill for 10–15 minutes until the top of the lasagne is browned. Remove from the oven and stand for 15 minutes before slicing and serving.

Masterclass

Choosing vegetables

You’d hardly be aware of it walking through a supermarket in the 21st century, but vegetables grow seasonally.

If you’re making any vegetable dish, foremost in your mind should be what is in season. In summer, this lasagne could be full of capsicum, eggplant and zucchini, while in winter, you could lean into the wonderful variety of greens and brassicas that will be at their best. Here are some options:

Summer

2 cups diced capsicum
3 cups diced eggplant
3 cups diced zucchini

Autumn

4 cups diced butternut pumpkin
3 cups roughly chopped silverbeet
1 cup sliced leeks

Winter

2 cups roughly chopped leafy greens
2 cups roughly chopped broccoli
2 cups roughly chopped cauliflower
2 cups sliced Brussels sprouts
perhaps a bit of blue cheese

Spring

3 cups roughly chopped spinach
2 cups green peas
2 cups sliced asparagus
1 cup sliced artichoke hearts

Green vegetables such as broccoli might star in a winter lasagne.iStock

Keep it simple

My bugbear with many recipes that contain multiple vegetables is that they can get too complicated, muddying the flavour of each vegetable.

The goal here is for your lasagne to have a specific flavour. If you make it with capsicum, eggplant and zucchini, it should be distinct from a version you make with leafy greens and Brussels sprouts. That might sound straightforward, but many vegetable dishes just taste like the same old vegetable medley.

It’s like painting a room. If you carefully choose a palette of one or two colours, perhaps with an additional accent here or there, you’ll have a distinctive and stylish room. But combine every colour you have, and every room you paint will be the same shade of brown.

The reason we cook the vegetables separately and stir them through the sauce at the end is to keep the flavour of each vegetable distinct, so you know if you’re biting into a piece of eggplant, broccoli or pumpkin. The same applies to many other mixed vegetable dishes, from ratatouille to curries.

Red or white, and besciamella

After choosing the vegetables, your next decision is whether to use a tomato or a ricotta base. This is entirely up to you. A summer or winter lasagne might work fantastically with a tomato base, but perhaps you could try a white base for your autumn or spring versions.

Regardless, to me, the key to a great lasagne, be it meat or vegetable, red or white, is the besciamella (bechamel). Season this well. So many lasagnes end up bland because cooks forget to season the besciamella – and because they don’t par-boil the lasagne sheets (more on that later).

Remember to season the besciamella (bechamel) well. iStock

Seasoning vegetarian dishes

While we’re discussing seasoning, you might note that I’ve encouraged you to season with vegetable stock powder throughout this recipe. As a meat sauce such as bolognese (ragu) cooks, the Maillard reactions between proteins and carbohydrates develop savoury flavours. As a vegetable-heavy dish cooks, some of the complex carbohydrates will change to simpler, sweeter compounds, which is why cooked vegetables are usually sweeter than their raw counterparts. There will be some increase in umami savouriness, too, but nowhere near as much as when cooking meat.

The challenge in seasoning, therefore, is to ensure that the dish remains savoury rather than ending up too sweet. Vegetable stock powder is useful for achieving this, so I recommend using it to season all of these vegetable lasagnes.

“The key to a great lasagne, be it meat or vegetable, red or white, is the besciamella (bechamel).”

Quick tricks for baked pasta

You might notice that I recommend you soften the lasagne sheets in boiling salted water before layering your lasagne even though your pasta packet assures you it isn’t necessary. I’m not saying they’re wrong, but I’ve had quite a few crunchy lasagnes where the liquid content of the sauce or filling wasn’t enough to soften the pasta, and which were under-seasoned because they were crying out for the salt normally added to the pasta water. I’ve never regretted softening the sheets a little in boiling salted water before layering, both for flavour and texture.

While I’m at it, an old Italian trick for al forno (baked) pasta dishes is to add 60ml (¼ cup) of water around the sides before baking. I started doing this a few years ago and have never looked back.

Another thing I always do with baked pasta dishes is rest them for 10 to 15 minutes after they come out of the oven. This allows the sauces to thicken and the cheeses to firm slightly, which helps the whole thing hold together better – no more layers of lasagne sliding around when you’re trying to slice and serve.

Lastly – and this is my favourite – a baked pasta dish will benefit from being covered in a sheet of aluminium so the edges don’t dry out. But how do you do this without the foil sticking to the top layer of cheese or bechamel? A toothpick or two inserted into the top of the dish will keep the foil sitting proud of the surface so that you can remove it to grill the top without pulling the whole top layer of cheese off with it. You’re welcome.