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After a number of requests on my instagram account, I thought it was time I share my zucchini lasagne recipe with you! This has past the boy test, who is my biggest critic and also happens to hate zucchini. He loves it, I love it and I know you will love it too. What I love about this recipe is that it tastes exactly like a lasagne. I don’t feel like I am missing out. It is packed full of vegetables and nutrition, coming in with a total of 7 vegetables. The zucchini sheets taste and feel exactly like pasta. I can promise that you will not even notice the difference between zucchini lasagne sheets and proper pasta lasagne sheets. The béchamel sauce has been replaced with low fat ricotta and parmesan on top. Otherwise, you can make a cauliflower béchamel based sauce as a healthy alternative and layer that on top.

Check out – Teresa Cutter’s (The Healthy Chef) White Sauce, 10 ways

This zucchini lasagne is low calorie, low carb, gluten free and absolutely guilt free. Each slice is 185 calories. Perfect for 5:2 diet followers. Unless you would prefer a large slice, this still comes in at 250 calories. So women can have 2 large slices for lunch and dinner and there is your fast day done! Just divide the lasagne into 6 portions instead of the suggested 8. I threw in some eggplant as an experiment to increase my vegetable intake. The result was an even richer and meatier meat filling. It is so delicious I will never make it without eggplant again. If you want to go completely vegetarian just replace the meat with more eggplant or any other vegetables.

What you will need:

• Mandolin slicer
• Kitchen towel/paper towel
• Oven dish

Ingredients

• 6 large zucchini
• salt
• olive oil spray
• 1 chopped onion
• 3 cloves minced garlic
• 600g lean mince
• 1 large eggplant – chopped
• 400g chopped tomatoes
• 1 chicken stock cube
• 2 cups raw spinach/thawed frozen spinach
• 1 cup of basil sliced
• 200g low fat ricotta
• 60g finely grated parmasen

Method:

Wash and pat dry zucchini. Cut the ends off and run the zucchini through the mandolin, slicing the zucchini into roughly 0.2cm slices.The aim is not to get this paper thin. You want the zucchini sheets to be thick enough to hold the lasagne together. The cooking process will also thin the sheets.Salt each side of the zucchini sheets, place on colander and let the zucchini sweat (pictured above). Set aside to pat dry with kitchen/paper towel later.

While the zucchini is sweating, prepare the eggplant ready for slicing. Slice it into 1cm apart lengthways. Again, salt each side of the eggplant and set aside until it has finished sweating. Pat dry and dice into chunks.

Turn the stove to a medium heat and lightly pan fry the individual zucchini sheets with a little olive oil spray. Remember to remove as much moisture as possible with kitchen towel before placing it in the pan. Preheat oven to 180 degrees.

When you have finished with the zucchini, set aside and begin making the lasagne filling. Pan fry the minced garlic and chopped onion until transluscent. Add the beef mince and stir. Add the eggplant and stir. Once cooked through pour in the chopped can of tomatoes into the pan. Refill the empty can with water and pour this into the pan, crumble the chicken stock cube and mix through. Bring this to a high heat and reduce to a simmer. Simmer uncovered for 30 min or until it is nice and thick.

Place a small amount of sauce in the base of the dish, just enough to lightly cover the base so that the zucchini does not stick. Layer this with your zucchini lasagne until covered. Then cover with meat filling. Repeat until the zucchini-to-meat layers have finished. Ensure that the meat filling finishes on top.

Scatter the spinach over the surface. Slice the basil and sprinkle this over the spinach. Then crumble the ricotta and top with parmesan. Ensure you top the lasagne with the cheeses on top to prevent the spinach and basil from burning.

Bake for 30min or until golden. Serve with a side salad and enjoy! The house will smell incredible!

Enjoy x

Serves: 8 Calories: 185 Carbs: 13g Protein: 17g

Total fat: 7.5g Saturated fat: 3.8g Fibre: 4g Sugars: 6.6g