Roasted Vegetable Lasagna
November 8, 2008 
For those of you who are tired of the same old lasagna, try making this "white" lasagna. It has no meat and you can really use whatever vegetables you like. The vegetables are roasted, giving them a deeper flavor and the lasagna is assembled with a simple, rich bechamel sauce. Learning how to make a bechamel sauce is easy - you just whisk and cook!
Roasted Vegetable Lasagna
for a printable recipe, click here
for the bechamel:
1/2 cup butter (1 stick)
1/2 cup flour
4 cups milk
some grated nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground white pepper
1 chicken bouillion cube (amount that you would dissolve in 1 cup water)
note: if you are using Knorr bouillion cubes, remember they are for 2 cups of water - just cut them in half
Vegetables to roast (you can use anything you like)
I used a combination of zucchini, yellow squash, carrots, 3 garlic cloves and some chopped up fresh spinach
Lasagna noodles for one 13x9 inch baking pan
I don't recommend "no boil" noodles for this lasagna.
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
For the bechamel:
In a medium sized saucepan, melt the butter. Whisk in the flour and cook for just a minute or so. Slowly add the milk and keep whisking. Add the nutmeg, white pepper and bouillion cube and whisk. Cook for a few minutes, whisking, until the bechamel has thickened slightly. Set aside to cool. Stir it once in a while so a skin doesn't form.
For the vegetables:
Chop vegetables uniformly. Mince garlic. Combine half the mixed vegetables on a baking sheet pan. Drizzle with olive oil, salt and pepper. Roast for several minutes at 400 degrees. Stir. Roast for several minutes more until vegetables are soft. You can roast a little longer, if you like them to be slightly carmelized. Repeat with remaining vegetables. Set aside to cool slightly.
Cook lasagna noodles for 5 minutes, until soft. Shock in a bowl of ice water, lay on towels to dry.
Spray a 13x9 baking pan with a little cooking spray. Spoon some bechamel thinly on the bottom of the pan. Start with a layer of noodles, a layer of bechamel, some vegetables, and then a layer of a little parmesan and mozzarella. Repeat layers until you have 6 layers of noodles. On top of the last layer, don't use any vegetables, just some bechamel and the remaining cheeses. Cover tightly with foil.
At this point, you can refrigerate this for a day if you want. When you are ready to bake, bring to room temperature for an hour and then bake for 50 minutes in a 350 degree oven. Remove foil. Bake for a little longer until top is slightly golden. Let sit for 15 minutes before slicing.
If you really love a tomato based lasagna, try my Lasagna with Red Pepper Tomato Sauce
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Reader Comments (28)
This looks DELICIOUS - and versatile, for those pesky vegetarians who sometimes come to dinner. (Only kidding - about the pesky part).
I LOVE THIS BLOG!!!!!!!!!
Gorgeous. Great photos and it sounds fantastic too!
It looks absolutely delicious and a refreshing change from the red pasta dishes.
Brava! Looks so creamy good! :)
This looks lovely. Now if only my family would eat their veggies. I may scale it down and freeze some of it just for me! By the way looks like you have some nice knife skills!
Diana: I actually use a vegetable chopper from Williams Sonoma when I have a lot of vegetables like these to chop and I want them to be a uniform size! It works great. I think it's called an alligator.
I was just going to comment on how nice your veggies were chopped, and then I read your comment. I think that's what's so unique about your lasagna here. In each bite you get to taste all of the different veggies together. Love it!
This looks wonderful and your photos are gorgeous. That first one really grabbed me!
Thanks for the gorgeous reminder that vegetable lasagne goes beyond spinach or butternut squash. Can't wait to give it a try!
that is some good uniform chopping! just like a pro!
This was PERFECT!! I made this for Thanksgiving instead of the usual turkey and dressing, and everyone loved it - they couldn't get enough and I've had requests to make it again next weekend. I was hoping to have leftovers, but no luck!!
This looks great but I don't see a reference to the amount of vegetables you are using. How many cups of chopped vegetables did you use?
Lori: Good question. Most of the time when I make a dish like this, I just don't measure. I try to put basic quantities when I post on the blog, but things like this are really very, very flexible. I might just take whatever I have in the fridge at the time. I can grab a few carrots, a couple zucchini and an onion from the pantry. So don't worry about measuring, seriously. And most vegetables benefit from roasting. You can try tomatoes, asparagus, whatever you want. I can honestly say when I cook a certain dish (unless I'm baking - that's the exception) I will not cook it twice the exact same way. Even if that means that I use three cloves of garlic one night and the next week I use two cloves, something is always a little different!
I tried this recipe today and it was so delicious. I did add some ground Italian sausage, which made it heartier but I think I'll use salted butter next time, as my bechamel sauce came out a little bland. All in all, a keeper. Thanks for the great recipe!
This dish looks so delicious. I am going to make it tomorrow and serve my family this very different type of lasagna. A leafy green salad, some bread and sweet grapes and I will have a meal fit for a king and my fussy family. Next I will make your Red Pepper Tomato Lasagna, my family is a pasta family and loves lasagna and I get tired of making the same old meat lasagna, even though it's my Italian grandmother's recipe and very good.
Thank you for such wonderful recipes.
YUMMYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This looks delicious. my husband hates the kind with tomato sauce, but he might go for this.
in an effort to use all of the zucchini i have been getting this season, i have been searching for recipes. i found a recipes for "pasta noodles" made out of zucchini. slice the zucchini into "noodles", toss with a teaspoon of salt for every two/three zucchini, and let drain in a colander for an hour. rinse and saute slightly in some evvo and voila! noodles! i also have an electric meat slicer and i found that i can make lasagne type noodles out of large zucchini. this sounds like a fabulous recipe to try with it (vegetarian AND low carb!)
this was very good - I added green chile - because that is what we do in New Mexico - add it to everything - excellent recipe. The photos were not only beautiful but helpful.
I recently stumbled onto your blog. Love your recipes and photos. I may even be brave enough one day to attempt to make pasta - you are inspiring!
Mary: You made my day! I hope you are inspired to try some new things. Fresh pasta is so easy and so good.
Hi Elaine,
Having just finished the last of a sausage lasagna from Sunday, I'm envious of how beautiful yours looks.
I've been humming and hawing about getting a veggie prep slicer (Christmas is coming and whadayaget the man that has everything) but haven't seen anything I liked until your pic of those perfectly diced veggies. Sounds so easy... guilty about lazy knife skills... will it lead me to the darkside?
Can you fill me in about the "I don't recommend "no boil" noodles for this..." as well as the par-cook/shock/towels vs the no-boil/hot soak/towels routine C.I. likes.
Happy to see "Made on a Mac" AND a twitter connection to Guy Kawasaki. I cook and iMac... I wonder if it's genetic?
Cheers, Stephen
From The Italian Dish:
Stephen:
I don't recommend "no boil" lasagna for this because it takes a lot of liquid/sauce for the noodles to properly cook. This lasagna has thick bechamel, which doesn't lend itself well to cooking with no boil lasagna. As for the shocking of the noodles, you only do that with regular noodles. That is so they stop cooking and are cool enough to handle so you can assemble the lasagna.
Hope this helps!
this looks delicious! I am making a trial run tonight, planning on serving it to company next weekend - does it matter what type of milk (skim, 2%, whole) for the sauce?
From The Italian Dish:
Kate: You can use any milk you like. I've made bechamel with whole milk and with 1%. You will just have a richer sauce if you use whole milk, which I would do for company (you want it to be as delicious as you can make it!)
I just made this for a girl's night dinner party and it came out fabulous! Great job! This will stay with me forever. I added the entire menu to my blog yesterday. Thank you for the recipe!
I just love your website - great recipes, directions and pictures! i have it bookmarked and will tell my friend who loves to cook italian as much as I do!
I am reading some of Meredith's old post and came upon your recipe. Looks wonderful.
I am alone except when children and grandchildren visit. I may try making 1/2 the recipe.