Seriously Good Slow Cooker Vegetarian Lasagne
This vegetarian lasagne is every bit as tasty and creamy as the classic version, but packed full of veggies and made simpler with a cheat’s white sauce and a dump-and-run approach using the slow cooker. Perfect for a busy weeknight dinner.
As busy parents trying to get our kids to eat more healthily, I think one of the biggest pitfalls for many of us is not having the time to cook healthy meals from scratch every.single.night.
Enter three magical phrases:
Freezer Cooking
Batch Cooking
…and possibly my favourite…
Slow Cooking
Freezer and batch cooking are great, and I will discuss them properly another day to give them the recognition they deserve, but they both take up a lot of fridge & freezer space, and if you don’t have that, then the best by far is slow cooking.
The best purchase I ever made for my kitchen was a slow cooker. It cost me £20 (although I have since upgraded to a £65 one that is far more suitable to my needs), and has saved me easily far more than that in food, time and energy bills.
On some days, it truly is like having a private chef in my house, but for free!
A few years ago, we decided to eat better quality meat, and simply eat less of it. This meant convincing my husband, who was brought up on the traditional “meat-and-two-veg” British diet, that vegetarian food could taste amazing.
These days, he requests that we eat more veggie meals and no longer notices the smaller amount of meat in our meals. They are delicious, filling, and leave us feeling healthier and happier.
It’s not that meat is bad – in fact, when you buy organic or at least free range, it can be a wonderful source of a lot of vitamins, nutrients, iron and of course, protein. But it is expensive to eat this way, and that is where delicious veggie meals come in very very handy.
We tried a lot of vegetarian lasagne recipes over the years, but this is by far our favourite. It originally came from this recipe, but has been adapted over the many times I’ve made it to suit our particular needs, taste and budget as a family, to create an affordable, nutritious and delicious meal that is mostly just a “dump ‘n’ run” meal that the slow cooker does for me.
We nearly always have some pumpkin, sweet potato or squash puree frozen in 1 cup servings in our freezer, as it is a gorgeous flavour to sweeten things naturally, and is just plain delicious. One of my son’s favourite “puddings” as a baby was sweet potato puree mixed with coconut milk and cinnamon. It was so sweet and yummy, that often we would end up having some, too! I can thank Weelicious for that one.
This is a sweet and creamy lasagne that all the family will love and that is low maintenance and simply yummy.
Little hands can:
- Stir the cheese sauce ingredients together or help you place items in a blender and push the buttons to pulse it together
- Scoop the seeds out of a butternut squash if you haven’t already made the puree, and help you spoon out the soft flesh and mash or blitz it smooth after roasting at 200C/400F/gas 6 for 45 mins until soft
- Help you layer up the lasagne by spooning and spreading in the sauce, greens and lasagne sheets
- Tear and spread the mozzarella over the top
- Turn on the slow cooker with you
Super easy and really delicious vegetarian lasagne that cooks away in your slow cooker while you are at work. Perfect for busy, budget-conscious families, and free of sugar and any of the other not-so-nice ingredients you often find in ready meals or jarred sauces.
- pureed squash or sweet potato from 1 butternut squash or 3-4 sweet potatoes, or 2 cans pumpkin puree (unsweetened)
- 500 g frozen chopped spinach defrosted and drained
- 100 g hard cheese (parmesan or cheddar is best)
- 500 g mascarpone, ricotta or cream cheese (I like to use homemade ricotta)
- 1 egg yolk
- pinches couple of nutmeg
- salt & pepper, to taste
- 125g mozzarella (or a small amount of homemade white sauce (I make about 1 cup/250ml)
- 10-12 lasagne sheets (gluten free if needed)
- Parmesan, optional
-
First, make the cheese sauce: mix the hard cheese with half the cream cheese, the egg yolk and a pinch of nutmeg in a food processor until smooth, then season.
-
Mix the remaining cream cheese with the spinach and season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg.
-
Assemble the lasagne: Spread half of the squash puree on the bottom of the slow cooker, then top with half of the white sauce, followed by lasagne sheets (you may need to break them to fit). Top with half of the spinach, then lasagne sheets. Repeat this whole process again, topping the final layer of lasagne sheets with some torn or grated mozzarella (or white sauce) and a bit of Parmesan.
-
Cook on low for 2-3 hours.* If you find that the mozzarella hasn't melted enough by this point, stick the crock pot under the grill or in the oven for a few mins until it is golden and bubbly.
* to have this cooking away for you while you are at work, especially if you don't have a slow cooker with a timer or your timer is preset to longer times, then get an inexpensive plug timer like this one, which allows you to program when to turn the plug on and off. Set your slow cooker on Low, program the plug timer to turn the plug on for 2-3 hours before dinner and leave it to cook for you.
Looking for easy, healthy slow cooker or Instant Pot meals? Find plenty more here. Looking for more vegetarian recipes? I’ve got plenty here.
Thank you for this recipe, I’m hoping to try it. I like that you can use frozen vegetables and that you don’t need to cook a white sauce on the hob. I don’t have a slow cooker, do you have any recommendations for how to cook it in the oven? What makes a slow cooker more useful than an oven? Is it for if you’re often out all day?
Thanks again.
Hi Mimi,
I would cook this for the same time as a regular lasagne, which would be about 30-45 mins at 200C/400F/gas 6. It’s ready when the pasta is golden, the cheese is melted and just catching, and the filling is bubbling up around the pasta. Slow cookers are fantastic if you are out of the house, but they are also great for 3 other reasons: 1) you don’t have to keep such a close eye on them – you do sometimes have to check things aren’t catching towards the end of cooking time, but early on it doesn’t require babysitting quite so much; 2) they are cheaper to run than ovens and hobs, as they use less electricity than a lightbulb; 3) they can make really cheap cuts of meat and “ugly veg” into really delicious meals, which saves you money on more expensive cuts. I bought one on a whim since it was so cheap, and haven’t looked back. In fact, I’ve bought a second bigger one with a timer since and still use them both every week (my cheaper one is now almost a decade old and still running without a hitch). A bonus use for many of us who are around the house but very busy in the week is that you can do some batch prep of slow cooker meals at the weekend, portion out into freezer containers and put in the freezer, then literally chuck the meal into the slow cooker and turn it on without needing to defrost. I love that bit.
Hope you enjoy the lasagne. 🙂