Low carb zucchini lasagna? Yes, please! My mother-in-law makes the best traditional lasagna with meat sauce. It’s fabulous! However, she was recently diagnosed with diabetes and cannot have her lasagna as often. I wanted to make a healthier version so when she comes to visit, I can make this for her and she doesn’t have to feel guilty about eating it! I invited my neighbor and her boys over to share this meal with my family. She said “Tammy, you out-did yourself”. They all went back for seconds!

Lasagna is usually not a quick 30 minute meal, although you can always use your favorite jarred pasta sauce to make this recipe move faster. But I highly recommend you make mine. So when you have some time on a Sunday, I suggest you open a bottle of wine, make this lasagna and enjoy the end of your day with this meal.

 -Tammy

Health tips:  low carb, diabetes friendly, kid friendly

Lasagna Ingredients: 8 servings

• Olive oil cooking spray
• 4-6 zucchini, sliced lengthwise to ¼ in thick (use a slicer/mandolin of you have one)
• 2 c. (or 15 oz. container) of part skim/low fat ricotta cheese
• 1 c. shredded parmesan cheese, divided
• 1 egg
• 2 cloves of garlic, crushed, grated, or finely chopped
• 1 tsp dried basil
• 1 lb (16 oz.) shredded mozzarella cheese

Pasta Sauce: Now you can use your favorite good-quality jarred pasta sauce, or you can make mine :-).

• 1 TBS olive oil
• 1 lb. Italian sausage (I used a chicken Italian sausage)
• 1 28 oz. can whole peeled tomatoes with basil (try to find San Marzano tomatoes, they have very little sodium)
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 4-5 cloves of garlic, crushed, grated, or finely chopped
• 2- 8 oz. cans of tomato sauce (no salt added if you can find them)
• 2 tsp of fresh oregano, chopped
• 3 extra large leaves of basil, chopped
• Salt to taste

 Tools: (not necessary, but make sit easier)

• Mandolin or slicer

 

Steps:

You can skip step 1 if you are using a jarred pasta sauce. But you should probably double or triple this sauce recipe and freeze the leftovers so you always have pasta sauce on hand.

1. Brown the sausage in a big pot in 1 TBS olive oil. Add onions and garlic and cook for 10 minutes. Add tomatoes, tomato sauce, oregano, basil, and salt to taste. Simmer for 30 minutes.

2. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. On a grill pan, grill both sides of the zucchini slices that have been sprayed with a little cooking spray. Drain/blot cooked zucchini on paper towels (you want to soak up most of the liquid in the zucchini so that your lasagna is not too watery). In a bowl, mix ricotta, ½ cup of parmesan cheese, egg, garlic, and basil.

3. Assemble lasagna: Put a small layer of sauce on the bottom of a 9×13 dish. Add a layer of zucchini, half of the ricotta mixture, 1/3 of the mozzarella, 1/3 of your sauce, then repeat. Top with sauce, the last 1/3 of the mozzarella, and the other ½ cup of parm cheese. Cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes. Uncover and bake another 20 minutes. Let it rest for 20 minutes.

Make sure and let the lasagna set (cool down) for 20 minutes or it will run all over the place (I didn’t let mine set for long enough. I only let it set for about 10 minutes, so it was a little runny). But I couldn’t help it, I was so excited to eat it!