HealthIER Lasagna

In my opinion, good ole fashion lasagna can only be so healthy with it still tasting like ‘lasagna’ but making just a few adjustments will allow you to feel great about feeding it to your family, plus it’s seriously so easy to do! This recipe feeds a family of 5 with left overs, feel free to cutting half if you do not need to feed as many people!

I use the oven ready noodles to save time and do not have any trouble with them still being hard with this recipe. Just make sure all of the noodles are 100% covered and you should be fine!

Ingredients:

2 lbs ground turkey

1 onion chopped

24 oz cottage cheese (I use 2% but you can use fat free, this is in place of ricotta cheese)

1 bag of Italian cheese (you can sub this with any white cheese you like)

1 box of oven read lasagna noodles (you could sub these with a gluten free noodle if you want to pre cook them)

1 1/2 jars of spaghetti/marinara sauce (1 jar of your favorite and 1/2 jar of a healthy low sodium sauce)

3 eggs

Optional: (fresh basil to garnish, my kids won’t eat this)

What to do:

Preheat oven to 375º

Brown the meat and chopped onion in a little bit of olive oil. I typically throw the onion in 2-3 minutes before I add the meat so that it has a little extra time to soften. I use ground turkey 90% of the time because it is healthier – but you could always do 1lb of turkey and 1 lb of lean ground beef if you prefer.

While browning, make your cheese mixture. Add cottage cheese, 3 eggs and 1/2 of the bag of Italian cheese to a bowl and mix.

Drain meat and onions and put back into pan. Add 1 1/2 jars of sauce and mix.

Spray your 9×13 oven dish with olive oil and layer first layer of noodles. I think I use 4 total breaking the 4th one to fill in where needed.

Spread one layer of cheese mixture.

Spread one layer of meat mixture.

Another layer of noodles (about 4)

Thick layer of cheese (use what’s left)

Layer of noodles.

Thick layer of meat sauce.

Sprinkle left over bag of Italian cheese.

Spray tin foil with olive oil and cover. Cook for 60 minutes.

Remove foil and allow to cook for 5 more minutes, you could do longer or turn to broil for a minute or two if you like top of cheese burnt or crispy.