If you’re grain free or can’t get your hands on gluten free pasta, this recipe is the go. I use potato and sweet potato instead of pasta and a ricotta sauce instead of going to the effort of making a béchamel sauce. By the way, it’s delicious. the kids gave it a double thumbs up.
Gluten, egg and nut free
INGREDIENTS:
MEAT SAUCE:
- 1kg of beef mince
- 1 brown onion, finely diced
- 2 carrots, grated
- 1 zucchini, grated
- 2 cloves garlic, crushed
- 1 jar passata sauce
- 1 Tbsp. tomato paste
- 1 tsp. mixed dried herbs
- 1 tsp. raw sugar
- ½ tsp. salt
- ¼ tsp. pepper
- 1 Tbsp. Extra Virgin Olive oil
CHEESE SAUCE:
- 750g ricotta
- ½ Cup milk
POTATO LAYERS:
- 1 large sweet potato, peeled, cut into 1cm strips lengthways.
- 4 medium potatoes, peeled and cut into 1cm strips lengthways.
TOP:
- 1 Cup grated tasty cheese
METHOD:
- Heat a large saucepan or steamer top high heat and begin to cook cut potatoes. Keep and eye on them as they are thin and won’t take long to cook.
- In the meantime, heat oven to 180°C.
- Heat a large frying pan or cast iron pan on medium-high heat. Once the pan is hot, add olive oil.
- Add onion and cook for 2 minutes until translucent, then add garlic and cook stirring for 1 minute.
- Turn heat up to high and add mince. Make sure u break it up as you put it into the pan so you don’t end up with big clumps of meat.
- Cook the mince, stirring for 3 to 4 minutes until it begins to go brown.
- Add carrot and zucchini and cook stirring for 2 minutes.
- Stir in tomato paste. Once that is combined, stir in passata sauce. I always like to add about ½ cup of water to the empty jar of passata, put the lid on, give it a shake and then add it to the meat as well as sugar, salt, pepper and herbs and stir to combine.
- Bring to the boil and then reduce the heat to low.
- Gently simmer for 15 minutes.
- Mix the milk and ricotta to make the cheese sauce.
- Make sure you check on the potatoes. they should be soft but still a little firm as they are going to be cooked more in the oven and it will prevent them from falling apart when handling. Allow them to cool enough to handle.
- Once the meat sauce is cooked and then sauce is reduced a little, spread a thin layer on the bottom of a greased casserole dish.
- Layer some potato and sweet potato on top of the meat, then spread some cheese sauce over the top as you would a lasagne.
- Repeat this process until you fill the casserole dish. Make sure you finish with cheese sauce. Sprinkle the grated cheese on the top of it.
- Place in the oven to cook for 25 to 30 minutes until the cheese on top is golden and bubbly.
- Once the lasagne is cooked, take it out of the oven and let it stand for 5 minutes.
- Serve with steamed vegetables or a salad.
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