148
Submitted by PattiCakeB
"I was looking for a yummy South Beach recipe to curb my Italian Cravings. I found a vegetarian lasagna recipe using eggplant slices as noodles, substituted my own meat sauce, and voila! A low carb keeper in our home! The eggplant taste is indistinguishable with all of the bold italian flavors, and adds the needed texture of the missing noodles. I've also seen zucchini strips used as the mock noodles. Try it!"
photo by Jonathan Melendez 
- Ready In:
- 1hr 45mins
- Ingredients:
- 22
- Serves:
-
8
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ingredients
-
Mock Noodles
- 2 large eggplants, peeled, sliced lengthwise into 1/4 inch noodle-like strips
- cooking spray (olive oil spray is best)
- salt and pepper
-
Meat Sauce
- 1 1⁄2 1 1/2 lbs turkey breast or 1 1/2 lbs Italian sausage
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 2 onions, chopped
- 3 cloves chopped garlic
- 1 red pepper, chopped
- 1 (16 ounce) package sliced mushrooms
- 2 tablespoons italian seasoning (or mix of oregano, basil and thyme)
- 1 teaspoon fennel seed (optional)
- salt and pepper
- 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes (if you dare!) (optional)
- 1 (10 ounce) package frozen chopped spinach
- 1 cup red wine (optional) or 1 cup vodka (optional)
- 1 (28 ounce) can tomato sauce (or large jar sugar free sauce if you can find it)
- 1 (15 ounce) can diced tomatoes (for less sugar, 3 chopped roma tomatoes)
-
Cheese Mixture
- 2 cups low-fat ricotta cheese
- 2 eggs
- 3 green onions, chopped
-
Next Layer of Cheese Mixture
- 3 cups shredded lowfat mozzarella cheese
- 1⁄2 cup parmesan cheese
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directions
- Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
- Spray cookie sheet, arrange eggplant slices and season with salt and pepper.
- Cook slices 5 minutes on each side.
- Lower oven temp to 375.
- Brown meat, onion and garlic in olive oil for 5 minutes.
- Add red pepper and mushrooms, and cook 5 minutes.
- Add spinach, tomatoes, tomato sauce, spices and wine and simmer for 5-10 minutes.
- Blend ricotta, egg and Green onion.
- Blend together Mozzarella and Parmesan Cheese.
- Spread 1/3 of meat sauce in bottom of 9” x 13” glass pan.
- Layer ½ eggplant slices
- Dollop and Spread ½ ricotta
- Layer 1/3 mozzarella/parmesan mixture.
- REPEAT
- Add last layer of sauce, then mozzarella/parmesan mixture on top.
- Cover with foil and bake at 375 degrees for 1 hour.
- Remove foil and bake or broil another 5-10 minutes until cheese is browned.
- Let it rest 10 minutes before slicing, if you can wait that long!
Questions & Replies
-
How big is the serving and much exactly is the carb, fat and protein in each serving? Thanks for your help.
Femi L.
-
Is this something i can prepare in the morning, refrigerate all day, and bake in the evening..or will that make the eggplant soggy?
Fran F.
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Reviews
-
I absolutely loved this the flavour was perfect it tasted just like real lasagna. I am diabetic and can't have pasta anymore but I love lasagna and this is perfect for me. I didn't use the wine and for the meat I used ground beef. I think I made my eggplant a bit too thin and it almost melted away in the dish while cooking that's why it looks a bit muddled in the picture but the flavour was fantastic I will be making this again. I got one large dish and a smaller one and that was me cutting the recipe by half it's a great recipe for putting one in the freezer for an other day when I am short of time. Thank you so much for posting. Made for on tour with the diabetic forum. June 2011
Tea Jenny
-
I decided to make this as I am trying to cut back on carbs. It was very tasty however I think next time I'll opt to use the red wine in lieu of the vodka as I thought the sauce was a tad bitter. When we had left-overs the next night I ended up adding jarred spaghetti sauce hoping to get rid of some of the bitter taste, it was good!
lindsay827
-
The taste was good but it was way too much meat sauce and cheese to fit a 9x13 dish pan. There is just no way everything was going to fit without overflowing. The meat sauce was too watery with all the tomato sauce and tomato. Are we supposed to drain the juices before layering them? I like the taste but the recipe is not well written. Need to be more specific.
LucyinBlueHawaii
-
This was an amazing dish for me. I have been soo restricted on what I can eat, nothing was appealing to me, I looked at this and though, "Might not b worth the effort" boy was I wrong! But I sure do disagree with 15 min prep lol or else I am extremely slow lol
Baby Chevelle
-
I'm doing Atkins, and this really cured my Lasagna cravings! Wonderful! I added 1 tsp Splenda to the sauce to cut the heartburn. Also threw in a can of tomato paste to thicken the sauce up. I didn't have fresh garlic, so I sprinkled garlic salt on the eggplant "noodles" instead of salt & pepper, and also added garlic powder to the sauce. Thanx for sharing! This will help keep me honest to my diet!
JuneDawg
see 137 more reviews
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Tweaks
-
I use fire roasted diced tomatoes
Wendy L.
-
-Strain the fat from the meat/onions BEFORE adding anything else to the pot -Use a Mandoline to thin slice the eggplant very thin...after baking for 5 mins, they are nearly the same width as actual lasagna noodles -Use 3 cups ricotta -Add pepper jack or 3 alarm cheese wheel from Sam's Club in your layers -Just realized I left out pepperoni...next time!!!!! -Use kale instead of spinach
funmail22203
-
increase the Ricotta cheese to 3-cups, but also drain it to remove excess water
julia.vona10
-
Lovely, although I did alter a tiny bit. I added two tablespoons of tomato paste and 1 tablespoon of sugar. And one teaspoon of mixed spice. - my family loved it! :))
info7006
-
Although, VERY Delicious!!! I have to give 4 Stars, because I changed the recipe a bit.First, I used my veggetti and ribbon cut the eggplants (btw, I used 2 for 4 Servings), which was quicker than handcutting. I omitted the mushrooms (my family likes them, but I'm not a fan of them).I used Red "Cooking" Wine and not regular wine (didn't have any but I'm sure it would've came out just as delicious, if not even better). Instead of, Green Onions, I used Chopped Green Peppers. I didn't measure the Mozzarella nor the Parmesan nor did I put in with the Cheese mixture. When I was putting together I placed them as layers.The final thing... I also used Oven Baked Ready Lasagna Noodles as part of my layers (my Hubby wanted the "Lasagna" look to it). I still baked the dish at 375°, cooked it in 30 mins. with another 15 mins of having to slightly brown top cheese (time to cook was still less than normal time).After ALL of this...VOILA!!! My Family and I REALLY enjoyed this. They loved it and were going back for more. And, I have to say, the next day's leftover was even better ;-)Thank you for the Recipe :-D
Kim F.
see 7 more tweaks
RECIPE SUBMITTED BY
PattiCakeB
- 7 Followers
- 1 Recipe
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