Jason Vowell
Lasagna. It’s the dish, without fail, that I requested my mom make me on every single one of my birthdays. And for the rest of my life, it felt like that was generally the only time I ate it. There is something so decadent, so gluttonous, about a properly-made lasagna. I’ve never met one I didn’t eat a second helping of.
This lasagna recipe drops the shameful stereotype of this practically-pornographic dish. Instead of high-carb pasta sheets, I used Palmini brand hearts of palm sheets. And to “healthy it up” a little more, I loaded the sauce up with a colorful and flavorful mirepoix.
Ingredients:
14 oz. Palmini hearts of palm
lasagna sheets
24 oz. low sugar marinara sauce ( like RAO’S brand)
1 tsp. olive oil
2 cups diced carrot
2 cups diced celery
2 cups diced red peppers
4 slices of smokey bacon
1/2 lb. Italian sausage
1/4 cup diced garlic
1 cup diced onion
2 cups cooked spinach
24 oz. cottage cheese (lower in carbs and calories than ricotta)
2 cups shredded mozzarella
1 cup grated parmesan
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1/2 cup fresh basil leaves
Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 400°.
2. Toss the carrot, celery, and red peppers into a food processor and pulse until shredded. Dice the onion and garlic. Cube the bacon to 1/2 inch chunks.
3. Cook the bacon in a heavy-bottomed pan with the sausage. Add the onion and cook until translucent. Add the carrot, celery, and red pepper mixture, and cook until soft. Add garlic, marinara sauce, and Italian seasoning. Simmer for at least one hour. Season to taste.
4. Mix the cooked spinach into the cottage cheese. (You can use ricotta if you want to be fancy.)
5. Drain the palmini sheets and layer the lasagna in a casserole pan. Sauce, palmini, cottage cheese/spinach, mozzarella. Repeat until pan is full, or you run out of ingredients.
6. Top with a heavy hand of shredded mozzarella and bake, uncovered, for twenty minutes. Continue baking until cheese is gooey and slightly browned. Set oven to broil, and cook until the edges are crispy.
7. Top with grated parmesan, red pepper flakes, and fresh basil. EAT.
Read more about writer Jason Vowell's health journey in the story: "How Food Blogging Almost Killed Me" from our January 2021 issue.
