Lasagne with Eggplant and Zucchini Noodles

I am so excited about this one – I had gotten this idea from somewhere of a lasagne that used thinly-sliced eggplant for noodles, and didn’t use any cheese or cheese substitute. Well, here it is, and it’s delicious!!! So delicious that my original intent was to make it to share with my coworkers, but I’ve decided to be selfish and make them something else (Um hi…if you’re reading this… it’s definitely also because you said you don’t really like meat or mushrooms!)

But yeah, you can probably do anything you want with this – like put something else in instead of the meat, and then it would be vegan, or sauté up different veggies with the onions, or use different squashes and whatnot for the noodles – but the eggplant ends up so creamy and delicious that I would suggest keeping that part

I got the original recipe from Plentytude, and here’s how it went down:

– Thinly slice eggplant, zucchini, or whatever noodle vegetables you’re using into sheets
– Brush on both sides with olive oil (oh yeah, this recipe rekindled my love of olive oil – I wouldn’t suggest a replacement here) and sprinkle with salt
– Lay the pieces in a single layer on a cookie sheet and broil on each side for ~3 minutes. You can do this in shifts while you do the other prep:

– Sauté onion in more olive oil on low-ish heat until softening and then add in mushrooms and whatever else and continue to sauté until pretty cooked

– Brown or sear whatever meat you’re using (they actually suggest chicken, but I did ground beef)

– Blend up some canned tomatoes (without the excess juice) with some tomato paste (this was my addition because I only had about 3 canned tomatoes left after my chicken curry)

Start the assembly:
– Thin layer of tomato
– Layer of eggplant
– Layers of all the other stuff in the middle
– End with a layer of eggplant covered by a layer of tomato
– Sprinkle some almond meal on top to make it look like cheese, if you want, totally optional, but it’s pretty

– Bake at 375*f for ~25 minutes

I will 100% say, as someone who is not into fake versions of foods, this is legit – I did not miss the cheese or the wheat noodles. So good! Maybe it’s more like some other dish though, it kind of reminded me of a moussaka or something. I don’t know, let me know what you think!