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
Ingredients:
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
Instructions:
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
Reader Comments (54)
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.
Looks fabulous. Am cooking for someone undergoing treatment, am freezing everything for her convenience. Can I put this together and freeze for baking later? Thanks.
From The Italian Dish:
Pam:
I have never actually frozen this particular lasagna, but I don't see why you couldn't. If you do, let me know how it turns out! Remember - do not use "no boil" noodles.
I am devouring this lasagna as I write. Yum! I was out of chicken bouillon cubes, so I omitted them and instead added a spice mix that I use for chicken. It came out delicious! I love the simplicity of this recipe, and am so glad to have an alternative to the typical red lasagna, which I've been sick of lately!
I made this recipe last night and oh my goodness! It was so good. My husband loved it too! Thank you!
It was my first attempt at a bechamel sauce and it turned out great.
First of all, I'mm just finding your site and I am loving it! second, oh my does this look good. I have been a bechamel hold-out for years, just not loving the whole flour thing, but I recently gave into a recipe for a mushroom lasagna from Ina Garten and I must say, it changed my mind. I can't wait to try your veggie version. Lastly, and as requested, I actually found this recipe when I tried to link to the Chocolate Zuchinni Cake photo, so there's a link-age (get it). I'm so glad I found your site, and I can't wait to really get into it, I love to start at the beginning and work my way to the present of sites I like. I can't wait to get to know you and yours.
to be more specific, the Chocolate Zuchinni Cake photo "from your home page" links to this recipe. It's on the far bottom right. Thanks again!
I made the Rosted Vegetable Lasagna and it was Delicious!!!! I added same pork sausage that I jazzed up with fennel seed and crushed red peppers ( for my meatlover) and have to let you know that I will be making this again and again. Grea recipe and love your site.
I am going to make this for Thanksgiving and was wondering what kind of noodles you use. Thank you.
From The Italian Dish:
Ellie: If you use no-boil lasagna noodles for this, you must make sure you have plenty of bechamel sauce, as the noodles soak it up. You can make it that way - just be sure your noodles are really totally covered in the sauce and then cover the lasagna tightly with foil for baking to make sure they get done. If you don't use no-boil noodles, you can either make your own lasagna sheets or use just regular noodles that you boil and then assemble. For bechamel based lasagnas, I prefer to either make my own noodles or buy regular noodles from the store and boil them myself and then assemble the lasagna. Hope this helps.
Elaine - I really have enjoyed reading your blogs - thank you so much for sharing all your wonderful recipes. I do have one suggestion, however, and that is that I wish you would recommend using a vegetable bouillion cube instead of chicken, especially when you are presenting vegetarian dishes, such as your roasted vegetable lasagna, and your pesto lasagna.
I have been a vegetarian for many many years and have always used vegetable cubes with excellent results. I am currently trying to be a vegan and would love to see some vegan recipes suggestions from you!
That is a beautiful bowl - lucky you. A few months ago I really enjoyed your blog about your most recent trip to Italy as I was there at the same time, visiting the same places. It was my fifth trip but hopefully not my last as like you, I get very inspired by everything Italy has to offer.
From The Italian Dish:
Rachele: Great suggestion and I will definitely pay attention to that! Thanks for the suggestion!
Hi Elaine!
Could I make this the night before and refrigerate for dinner the next day? Please let me know, whenever you have a moment to respond! Thanks a bunch!!! We loooooove this recipe! :-D
From The Italian Dish:
Cal: Yes, you can assemble this the night before and refrigerate it. The next day, an hour before you want to bake it, take it out and place it on the counter and bring it to room temperature. Then bake as usual.
I'm making this for the second time today. I made it first for a church luncheon and had several requests for the recipe. It is THAT good! Thanks for the recipe!
Why do you roast only half of the vegetables.
From The Italian Dish:
Patricia: You roast half the vegetables first on a sheet pan and then do the second half. You do them in two batches, basically. If you have a convection oven, you could do two pans at once. Otherwise, you would have to use two pans and rotate them to roast them evenly.
This lasagna looks wonderful! I think I will add red pepper to the veggies for the color and the taste. Can't
wait to try it. Thanks for your great blog.
Shelagh
this is literally the best bechamel lasagna recipe out there. I changed the vegetables to my liking but otherwise i wouldn't change a thing. HIGHLY recommend it.
What brand lasagna noodles do you use? What you have pictured looks so good! I'm making this for the third time today, but I'd really like next time to try a different noodle...
From The Italian Dish:
SHD: You know, this was a brand of lasagna noodle that my local grocery store, Meijer, used to sell and they do not anymore. They were awesome but I guess no one bought them and they discontinued the item. They were actually a "Meijer Gold" bronze die brand pasta. I was so disappointed.
Made this tonight with red and green bell peppers and carrots. Also used no boil noodles. Turned out amazing. Yummy!
if i can suggest for the beshamel, cook the butter & flour more than 1 minute or until you have a cookie smell, it means that the flour is well cooked, and also thank you for the nice recipes