Layered Lasagna

My friend Valeria taught me how to make lasagna, relatively cheaply and easily, several years back, and I went on to make this a number of times, always tweaking it a bit, because I never use the exact same recipe twice... When I decided to become vegetarian towards the end of 2019, I knew I'd need to start modifying some of my old standards, recipe-wise, and at first this was easy to modify, just swapping out Italian sausage and using a fake meat alternative... But supply problems brought by COVID made finding those alternatives problematic, so that's when I figured out how to boil and season baby carrots to emulate Italian sausage, and used hemp seeds from trader Joe's for protein, etc.

—Ynza Morgan Star (Transportation & Parking Services)

lasagna1 pound spicy Italian sausage (or equivalent in veggies/veggie protein)
1 onion, finely diced
jalapeño peppers, to taste (0-3 peppers, depending on preferred spice levels)

8 ounces crumbled feta
16 ounces small-curd cottage cheese (or ricotta cheese)
1 Tablespoon basil
2 Tablespoons garlic powder
1 teaspoon black pepper

3 bell peppers, julienned
8 ounces fresh spinach (remove stems and cut into smaller pieces if needed)
16 ounces shredded mozzarella
16 ounces spaghetti sauce
8-10 lasagna noodles

Notes: Ingredients are grouped into three sections and will be referred to as "section 1," "section 2," and "section 3." Use the largest casserole dish you have and a huge mixing bowl.

Number of servings: 8-12

  1. Cook the meat (or soften the carrots, etc.) by frying all the ingredients in section 1 together. You'll want to fully cook the meat (or cook the carrots until soft but not mushy) prior to step 3.
  2. While the meat (or vegetables) simmers, combine all the ingredients in section 2 into a very large mixing bowl, and mix well.
  3. Add ingredients from step 1 to the bowl from step 2 and mix thoroughly.
  4. Spread half of the contents from the bowl over the bottom of the large casserole dish.
  5. Cover the meat/cheese layer with half of the spinach as evenly as possible. 
  6. Evenly spread half of the bell peppers across the spinach layer.
  7. Place dry lasagna noodles on top, covering existing layers as much as possible without overlapping noodles (you may need to break some noodles depending on the shape of your dish).
  8. Cover the noodles with half of the spaghetti sauce.
  9. Cover the sauce with half of the mozzarella.
  10. Preheat the oven to 375°F. 
  11. Repeat steps 4-9 to add additional layers.
  12. Cover lasagna with foil. Either spray the bottom of the foil with non-stick cooking spray or make a tent of foil so the cheese layer on top does not stick to the foil.
  13. Bake for approximately 50 minutes, or until the noodles are done (you may want to refer to the directions on the box of noodles).
  14. Test noodle edges to make sure they are cooked, set for 5 minutes, and serve.