Ingredients
- 6 whole wheat lasagna noodles
- 3 ounces part skim mozzarella, shredded
- 2 ounces provolone, shredded
- 1 ounce gouda, shredded
- 1 package frozen spinach, thawed and well drained
- 1 package frozen mushrooms, thawed and well drained
- 1 jar Rao’s Diablo Sauce (or other pasta sauce with comparable calories)
- 1 package silken tofu
- 30 grams pesto*
- garlic powder, kosher or sea salt and black pepper to taste
Preparation
Cut tofu into chunks and put in blender or food processor with pesto. Blend and add garlic powder, salt and pepper to taste. Will be a thinnish mixture, kind of like sour cream, and won’t have an overwhelming amount of flavor. Remember this is mostly filler but should taste good. You can also add some sriracha here if you want to make it spicier. Remember to count the added calories if you do though!
Cook noodles about 75% of the way to al dente – about 10 minutes. (Optional healthy bonus: Don’t salt your pasta water. You won’t miss it and you’re body will thank you.) Put a thin layer of sauce on the bottom of your pan to keep the noodles from sticking. Lay three noodles along the bottom of the pan. Top noodles with spinach and mushrooms, as much of the tofu mixture as you want to use and about a third of the diablo sauce. Layer the other three noodles on top, put the rest of the sauce over these noodles and then spread the cheese on top.
Sprinkle the top with dried oregano, basil or parsley to make it look a little fancier if you so desire.
Put in the oven at 350 for 35 – 45 minutes or until the cheese is bubbly and starting to brown on top. Let stand for 15-20 minutes before serving to reduce wateriness. Like a good steak, lasagna needs to rest.
Notes
One pan with 6 noodles cut into 12 pieces will come out to about 170-190 calories per piece depending on how much of the tofu pesto mixture you used. I usually end up with about 20-25% of the it leftover.
The tofu pesto mixture replaces the ricotta and drastically reduces the calories. But, if you don’t tell anyone, they’ll never know it’s not cheese. Having all of the shredded cheese on top also tricks the eye and mind into thinking there’s more cheese in there than there is.
You can add more veggies such as thinly sliced zucchini or yellow squash without adding many calories.
Also, if you want the lasagna to have a more smokey, earthy flavor, increase the amount of gouda and decrease one of the other cheeses accordingly.
Optional (but adds a lot of calories calories): 1 package jimmy dean spicy sausage cooked thoroughly and doused with a healthy amount of sriracha. You can also add cooked ground turkey if you need meat in your lasagna. Adding one pound of ground turkey (dark meat) will add approximately 60 calories per piece (half a pound will add 30 calories per piece, etc).
*Skipping the pesto will reduce the calories by about 12 calories per slice and isn’t totally necessary since you can’t really taste at as pesto in the dish. It just adds some easy flavor to the tofu.