Tempeh and Baby Bella Lasagna (Vegetarian)

The New York Times recently published this article about “semi-veganism”. I’ll be honest, veganism is just not for me. I suppose I could be called a “semi-semi-vegan” if you consider eating a vegan meal once or twice a month being a “semi-semi-vegan”. I really just couldn’t live without a little cheese, yogurt, and egg in my life (unless I had to for medical reasons). I do, however, make many vegetarian dishes, which you can check out on my sidebar to the right (and yes, some of them are vegan). If you are vegan and you want to make the following vegetarian lasagna recipe vegan, use a vegan cheese such as Daiya (it melts really well).

Tempeh and Baby Bella Lasagna

Ingredients

• 1-14.5 ounce can roasted tomatoes, partially drained
• 1-8 ounce package traditional tempeh **
• 1-8 ounce package of baby portobellos, rinsed and sliced **
• 3 long lasagna noodles (if you have the shorter ones use 6) **
• 16 ounces cottage cheese (I used a lactose-free variety) **
• 5 cups mozzarella cheese **
• 1-2 tsp. garlic-infused olive oil

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 375
2. Grab a half-sized casserole dish (~4.5 inches x 7 inches). You can choose to double this recipe if you’d like, and in that case, you would use a full-size casserole dish (9×13)
3. Chop the tempeh into small chunks. In a large saute pan, saute the tempeh and baby Bellas with about 2 tsp. garlic-infused olive oil. As you are sauteing, chop the tempeh and mushrooms as much as possible (to resemble the texture and size of ground meat). Saute until the tempeh starts to brown.
4. Grab the casserole dish and add a layer of canned tomatoes (~1/3 can), followed by a layer (~1/3) of the tempeh and mushrooms, followed by a 2 lasagna noodles (if using large lasagna noodles, use one large, broken in half), followed by a layer (~1/3 of the container) of cottage cheese, followed by ½ cup mozzarella. Repeat the layers until you are out of ingredients. You want the top layer to be cheese!
5. Cover with two pieces of foil, then bake for 50 minutes.
6. Take the foil off and finish baking for another 15 minutes.

Notes

** If you are following a low FODMAPs diet this is probably not the best recipe. Tempeh doesn’t contain FODMAPs, but I’m not convinced that’s really the case (it does cause me issues). Also, the mushrooms and cheese contain polyols and lactose, respectively. But, mozzarella tends to be lower in lactose, and if you use the Lactaid brand of cottage cheese that should help.

This is a side view. Not the best color, sorry.