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Lasagna with Creamy Red Wine Sauce

Gluten Free Vegan Lasagna

So, this may not be the most glamorous food I have posted, but let me start with a word in its defense.  This stuff is freaking incredible.  I mean it.  Sure, the sauce isn’t a brilliant bright red since it uses avocados and red wine (kinda pinkish orange), but once you taste it, you simply will not care how it looks.  I promise.

The noodles I used were gluten free and I highly recommend them if you swing that way too.  They are made by Tinkyada… or Pasta Joy… the word “Ready” also appears on the box too…???  So I’ll provide a picture down below as to not confuse you guys myself any further.  They are the best GF noodles I have ever tasted.  Hands down.  They taste just like regular noodles!

rice lasagna noodles

The major grocery chain store (with limited selection) near my house carries these noodles in basic varieties: macaroni, shells, spaghetti.  But, they do not have the lasagna style noodles.  Therefore, these may be a tad hard to come by for some folks.

This weekend we made a special trip to Whole Foods to obtain mass amounts of Daiya (if you’re not in the know, all Whole Foods in the U.S. are now carrying Daiya!), and they had some of these wonderful lasagna noodles there too.  Hooray!  So, it is only fitting that I do a celebratory blog post dedicated to the fusion of these two indulgence foods.

The recipe I am posting is more for the sauce, as the rest is just assemblage.  But I couldn’t just do a post for sauce (even thought it rightfully deserves its own post).  And combining the noodles with the sauce, veggies, tofu , tempeh and Daiya makes one seriously good lasagna that I just had to share.

Warning- this may take up a good amount of your day, but after that you can refrigerate it and move on with life.

Enjoy!


Ingredients:

Sauce:

  • 3 medium sized tomatoes
  • 1 15 oz. can of tomatoes (drained) -if you’re curious as to why I used both canned and regular, I didn’t have enough of either to use just one- so I combined them, and I liked the result ;)
  • 1 cup red wine, I used “2 buck chuck” Cabernet Savignon
  • 2 ripe avocados
  • 4 cloves garlic
  • 1 small yellow onion, quartered
  • 3 tsp salt

Tofu Ricotta:

  • 1 block extra firm tofu, very well drained
  • 1 tbsp lemon juice
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tsp black pepper

Other ingredients:

  • 1 box lasagna noodles, gluten free or regular
  • 1 zucchini
  • 3 large portobello caps
  • 1 block tempeh, crumbled ( I used veggie flavored)
  • 8 oz of Daiya vegan cheese
  • a little more red wine for sauteing the mushrooms

Directions:

First, preheat your oven to 350 degrees and get a 9 x 13 glass pan ready.  Don’t grease it, just have it “ready”.  Next, in a large (pretty tall) pot, boil your noodles according to package directions.

While noodles are boiling, prepare your sauce.  All you have to do is take all of your “sauce” ingredients and mix until smooth in a food processor.  You may need to do this in two batches if you have a small food processor.  Mine is average sized and it all fit well.  Set aside.  This will make a lot of sauce… but you will need every last drop. :)

Next, make your tofu ricotta.  Gently crumble the very well drained tofu into a medium sized bowl.  Add lemon juice , pepper, and salt and mix it all together. Set aside.

tofu ricotta

Your noodles may or may not be done at this point.  If they are done, drain and rinse with cold water, and set aside in long separate strips.  I did this on two  Silpat mats and there was no sticking to be found.

Next, very thinly slice your zucchini.  It doesn’t have to be as thin as the zukes in my picture.  I used a spiralizer to cut mine- you can easily use a knife or a vegetable peeler to slice yours.  Also, slice up your portobello mushrooms and saute them in a little red wine until soft.  Set the un-sauteed zukes and the sauteed mushrooms aside.

thinly sliced zucchini

Okay, now it’s time to assemble.  I layered mine like so… you can be creative with how you layer yours if you want.

From the bottom up:

  1. Bottom of pan
  2. Sauce
  3. Noodles (4 covered the bottom of my pan well)
  4. Tofu Ricotta
  5. Daiya
  6. Sauce
  7. Noodles
  8. Crumbled Tempeh
  9. Zucchini
  10. Mushrooms
  11. Daiya
  12. Sauce

And, we end up with it looking like this:

gluten free vegan lasagna

Then I covered it with one more layer of noodles, some more sauce and some more Daiya.  And it looked like this:

gluten free vegan lasagna

At this point, I covered it very lightly with aluminum foil and baked for about 70 minutes.  Next, I uncovered the lasagna, added even more Daiya and then continued to bake it in the oven for about 8 more minutes.  To get the top nice and crispy, broil it until golden brown.

That’s it!  After it is done it should look like this:

gluten free vegan lasagna

After it cools for a bit (and you cut it up), it will look like this:

gluten free vegan lasagna

Alright, now go make yourself some.  Or bookmark for later… you’ll be happy you did. :)

Share with friends!

20 Responses to Lasagna with Creamy Red Wine Sauce

  1. ashleylynphoto@gmail.com says:

    It’s in the oven now.

  2. Tempeh, portobello, and avocado? Plus the tofu cheese and the Daiya? This is indeed veggie lasagna with an upgrade. I have an exchange student here who has been good-heartedly eating my vegetarian cooking. Lasagna is his favorite so I need to make him a veggie lasagna soon and this one would be great. I have the Tinkyada brown rice pasta in my cupboard already though the package looks a little different, it’s organic brown rice pasta in an orange package.

  3. Karenle893 says:

    This was great! I added dried shitakes with the fresh and sauteed them in leeks and wine. Yummy. Thank you!!!

  4. This looks great! And “cheesy” which is awesome because I really have been missing cheese since becoming a vegan

  5. This is by far one of my favorite lasagna recipes of all time! It was even a hit with my meat loving husband and my six year old asked me to put some in his lunch for school!

  6. Mary says:

    Gah! Incredible! (Can you tell that I’m hungry?) I’ll bet that lasagna would freeze really well, too. I am all about the leftovers recently. Thanks for the daiya tip. I’ve never tried it. Maybe now the Portland, Maine WF carries it!

  7. Christy says:

    This is beautiful! I love those gluten-free brown rice pastas! I use those and quinoa pasta exclusively now. Thanks for the tutorial on how to make the tastiest lasagna ever!

  8. Mo says:

    That is one dreamy lasagna! Yum!

  9. Keeryah says:

    Oh. my. goodness! That lasagne looks sooooo delicious! The sauce sounds just perfect! I’ve yet to find a recipe that doesn’t benefit from the addition of avocado.
    And, may I just say, I adore that raw zucchini photo so much…i’m a sucker for high contrast!

  10. Mihl says:

    This is awesome! When I opened a bottle of red wine yesterday I thought “I should cook with wine again.” Thank you for hearing my thoughts!

  11. Ricki says:

    Oh, man, that looks amazing. I am a huge fan of using avocado in cooked dishes (or even baked goods!). I know what you mean about it taking up most of the day–lasagna is like that–but I bet this is worth it. And yes, I AM bookmarking it!

    PS Thank you SO MUCH for your kind comments and support of this crazy Ellen quest! Keeping fingers crossed. . . ! ;)

  12. Katrina says:

    I disagree! This looks PERFECT and so scrumptious too. Thanks for the recipe!

  13. I’ve had Tinkyada gluten free lasagna noodles and can also attest to the fact that they taste just like regular noodles. Zero compromise. I just scored some Daiya vegan cheese too and am very impressed with it. I actually have enough time on my hands that I might be able to do something interesting with it and take a shot at this semi daunting recipe :)

    • allyson says:

      Oh, I hope you do! It wasn’t terribly time consuming (although the bake time is a bit long)… it’s just the cleanup afterward in my kitchen can be quite a task. Pots, pans and sauce everywhere! I’m a super messy cook though. ;)

  14. Josiane says:

    The sauce does indeed sound terrific, and the whole lasagna… yum!

  15. Jennifer says:

    Ohmygoodness!!! This couldn’t look more delicious! I think I’m in lasagna love.

  16. Oh wow, what a creative recipe! This looks absolutely delicious, I really want to make this someday soon!

  17. This is, without a doubt, the most beautiful vegan lasagna I’ve ever seen. What an amazing accomplishment, this recipe is gorgeous and I can just imagine biting into a delicious slice of this. Daiya cheese is my latest obsession. Too bad it will be about a hundred years before they ever carry the stuff over here.

  18. […] This post was mentioned on Twitter by glueandglitter, Allyson Kramer. Allyson Kramer said: morning all! How bout some pics of Lasagna for breakfast? It has @daiyacheese in/on it too! Mmmmm. http://tinyurl.com/yypqvn4 #vegan #GF […]

  19. Kim says:

    Holly cow this looks so good! I love seeing new lasagna recipes. Beautiful pics too.