This cheesy Garden Vegetable Lasagna is a tasty meatless twist on your classic lasagna recipe! With layers of fresh veggies, ricotta and mascarpone cheese, this easy dinner is perfect for family holidays or busy weeknights.
Garden Vegetable Lasagna with Ricotta Mascarpone Layers
Wow, it’s already Thursday night, what a fast week! Ok, brace yourself for this lasagna.It is worth all the preparation, I promise! I cut into the pan a little soon, so you can’t see all the pretty pasta layers, but let me tell you this lasagna is a keeper.Veggis were flying all over my kitchen as I was putting it all together. I’m not one to toot my own horn, but it really couldn’t have turned out any better. I have been in hog heaven having the leftovers and know I’ll be making it often.
The best part is, I presented it to the boys in their little bowls, all cut up, with their spoons ready and they dug right in. I told them it was lasagna and it tasted like spaghetti and meatballs. They loved it! Chock-full of garden fresh veggis and heavenly layers of ricotta and mascarpone cheese…..Enjoy!
Read the funny things my little guy said about his day at school at the end of this post, it’ll make you smile!
Garden Vegetable Lasagna with Ricotta Mascarpone Layers
Equipment
- Oven
Ingredients
- 9 oz oven ready lasagna noodles try the whole wheat, it was great!
- 2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
Homemade Pasta Sauce
- 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 1/2 cup white onion finely diced
- 4 cloves fresh garlic peeled and minced
- 28 oz can Muir Glen Whole Peeled Plum Tomatoes pulsed in food processor until nearly smooth
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp fresh cracked black pepper
- 6 oz can tomato paste
- 10 fresh basil leaves chopped
Vegetable Filling
- 3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 2 medium yellow squash sliced
- 1 medium zucchini halved and sliced
- 1/2 cup thinly sliced fennel
- 2 cups broccoli florets
- 2 cups diced eggplant
- 4 cups fresh baby spinach leaves coarsely chopped
- 1 large red bell pepper seeded and diced
- 3 cloves fresh garlic minced
- pinches of salt
Ricotta Mascarpone Layers
- 1 1/2 lbs part skim ricotta cheese about 1 ½ big containers
- 1 cup fresh grated parmesan cheese
- 1/2 cup soft mascarpone cheese
- 2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp fresh cracked black pepper
- 1/4 tsp garlic salt
Instructions
Pasta Sauce
- Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Saute onion for 5 minutes, stirring often, then stir in garlic and cook for 1 minute.
- Stir in crushed tomatoes, salt, pepper, tomato paste and basil leaves. Reduce heat to low and simmer until ready to use.
Vegetable Filling
- Heat oil into a large dutch oven or pot over medium heat. Saute all ingredients for 10-12 minutes, season with a couple pinches of salt, stirring often or until softened to your liking. Cook longer for softer texture.
- Reduce heat to low and simmer until ready to use.
Ricotta Mascarpone
- Place all ingredients into a large bowl; stir until well combined.
Assembly
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Coat bottom of a large 9x13 inch baking dish with a couple ladles of homemade sauce.
- Layer with lasagna noodles. Spoon 1/3 Ricotta Mascarpone mixture over noodles, spreading slightly (I used my fingers). Top evenly with 1/3 vegetables.
- Repeat this process 2 more times or until all ingredients are used up. The top layer should be lasagna noodles.
- Pour remaining sauce over noodles then sprinkle with 2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese. Bake covered for 45-50 minutes, then remove foil for the last 10 minutes of baking.
- Let sit in pan for 15 minutes before cutting into it. Serve and enjoy!
Nutrition
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I am loving the Kindergarten drama already! This is the end of week 2 and I get earfuls everyday from my cutie. After he told me about the girls who love him, I opened up his backpack and found 3 love notes. My favorite was a picture of a girl wearing a crown and a boy, holding hands with both of their names written on it, then on a separate note was their wedding cake. I love this! I will be saving these notes forever, totally priceless! Oh, and we had a nice conversation about sticking up for yourself at school too. I hope I don’t get a call from the principal!
Have a great rest of the week and try some yummy Lasagna!
Welcome to my online kitchen! Picky Palate is where you’ll find family friendly recipes along with the best Disney eats, tips and copycat recipes! 
can you make this ahead and freeze????
the best garden vegetables are cucumber, tomato and also cabbages because they are really easy to grow*,*
the best garden vegetables are tomatoes and potatoes, they look great and you can eat them too.;*~
Tomatoes are always present as garden vegetables because they are easy to grow.~`:
Made this for dinner tonight. Everyone (even my vegetable-adverse children) loved it! A fabulous recipe–thanks so much!
Hi Megan,
Thanks for catching my error. Yes, it is one small onion, or about 1/2 Cup finely diced onion. I’ll go edit that right now!
I made this last night and it was really good but I do have a question. For the sauce…you didn’t list how much onion to saute in your ingredients. I was just wondering if you could let me know how much that is. Thanks so much!!!
Looks so good! May have to try it out on my boys once we get started back to school in September (we start later here).
I love the 1st day of school comments! Absolutely priceless!
Omigosh. That looks to die for.
Jenny-just a quick note…I took some inspiration from this gorgeous creation of yours this weekend. I had a little of a LOT of veggies in the refrigerator to use from the garden (before I get more)-so I made a version of your recipe using what I had (no Marscapone :() and made Lasagna Roll ups…instead of layering, I spread the ricotta-vegetable filling on each cooked noodle and rolled them up-spread sauce on the bottom of the pan, sauce over the top and plenty of cheese. YUM YUM! I even have some for the freezer for those “What do I make for dinner?” nights!
Thanks so much for the wonderful recipe-and for getting my cooking juices flowing!! 🙂
Carol
you’re on food network right now! it’s the chicken competition! cool!!
the lasagna looks sooo yummy!!! i have never had it with marscapone…what a great combo
btw…the story of your son was soo cute…it made me laugh out loud!!!
That looks amazing! I’ve never tried mascarpone in lasagna before, but I have a few quarts of homemade pasta sauce in the freezer looking for a new idea! Thanks 🙂
Ahahah! You boy is too cute! Kids grow so fast these days, wedding cakes allready? Maybe the little girl is into baking! Maybe it will be the perfect DIL for you!
Lasagna looks to die for!
wow, that looks so GOOD! that and some garlic bread would be delicious! yummo. i think you might want to cover your ears, but i eat stuff of the floor too – my sister thinks it’s disgusting! maybe it is…
The recipe is wonderful! Your little ones words….priceless!! I remember those days when the kids were little. When each one of my kids had they’re first day of kindergarten i took pictures the whole walk to school! Every first day of school i would make cookies and wait for them to come home to tell me about they’re day.
Your little boy is so cute!
Great looking lasagna! Love all the veggies! One of my very favorite foods!
I was a grilling girl tonight…however, this hurricane/storm kind of got in the way, but I was determined…lightning, thunder and all! A little scary but mission accomplished! : )
This seriously looks amazing! I love veggies and cheese so I can’t wait to try it and convince my kids that vegetables are yummy!
can’t wait to make this one and cute story
We absolutely love your recipes and have used quite a few of them. Here’s an invitation to check out our new blog.
Your son is a little charmer! What a fun recipe – I’m bookmarking this one.