If you’ve ever looked for a delicious vegan, gluten-free lasagna option, look no further than this butternut squash lasagna. We included vegan ricotta using cashews, making this recipe totally cleanse-friendly! The cashew ricotta has a very similar consistency to regular ricotta, and the flavor is out of this world.
CASHEWS FOR MINERALS
Cashews contain a lot of beneficial nutrients and minerals including vitamins E, K, B6. They also contain essential minerals our bodies need in order to function properly, like zinc, magnesium, iron, and selenium. If you are interested in more cashew recipes, you can try our easy Cashew Milk.
It’s really important to include more selenium-rich foods in our diet to benefit our skin because this mineral is the richest in antioxidants. If we’re dealing with breakouts, eating selenium-rich foods can help a lot.
LOAD UP ON VEGGIES
This butternut squash lasagna also uses squash slices instead of pasta. Using veggies instead of processed pasta is a great option to avoid gluten, and is also lower in carbs. The spinach and zucchini add more nutritional value, as well as flavor. We like to sneak in greens to our recipes whenever possible, if you’re serving this to your kids, they won’t even notice the spinach!
The pesto is also dairy-free and made with walnuts. Walnuts add a nice creaminess and improve heart health. Feel free to adjust the ingredients in the pesto according to taste by adding a bit more salt, garlic, basil or walnuts to balance out the flavor.
Serves 8
Ingredients:
Cashew Ricotta
- 3 cups raw cashews, soaked
- 1 cup water
- Juice of 1 ½ large lemons
- 3 Tablespoons nutritional yeast (optional)
- 2 garlic cloves
- ½ teaspoon onion powder
- Pink Himalayan sea salt & pepper to taste
Pesto
- 1 cup walnuts
- 1 ½ cups fresh basil
- 1 ½ cloves of garlic
- 1/3 cup avocado oil
- salt and pepper to taste
Lasagna
- 1 large butternut squash (peeled and thinly sliced)
- 3 zucchinis (thinly sliced)
- 2 cups fresh baby spinach
Instructions:
Cashew Ricotta:
Soak the cashews for at least 2 hours in a bowl of water, covering the cashews about 2 – 3 inches of water, as they will swell up.
Drain cashews and place all remaining ingredients into a blender or food processor, process until creamy stopping to scrape down the sides every few minutes. Taste for flavors adding any additional ingredients.
Set mixture aside in a bowl.
Pesto:
Blend together all the ingredients in a food processor or blender and scrape edges to make sure all the ingredients are well combined.
You may need to adjust and add more basil, garlic, oil, or salt, according to taste.
Lasagna:
Preheat oven to 375’F and lightly grease your cooking dish (9 x13inch) with avocado oil. Peel the skin off the butternut squash and cut the butternut squash and zucchini into thin slices.
Place a layer of the butternut squash on the bottom of your dish, slightly overlapping. Add a layer of the cashew ricotta.
Next add a layer of zucchini, slightly overlapping the slices.
Then add a thin layer of pesto on top of the zucchini.
Then, add a layer of spinach.
Repeat this three times, and your last layer should be the zucchini. Press down on the top of your lasagna lightly to make sure everything is pressed together.
Cover your lasagna with aluminum foil and cook in the oven for 50 minutes. Make sure the butternut squash is cooked through before the next step by testing with a knife to see if it cuts through easily.
Then take the foil off, and increase the oven temperature to 400’F and cook for another 10 minutes until the top is golden brown.
Recipe and photos by Dorit Jaffe
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