Lasagne pasta bake

Picture this: you're in the pasta isle, it finally has pasta in it again!

Except... the lasagne sheets you're specfically looking for.

I don't remember the last time I made a lasange, and with lockdown and the extra time its given I wanted to try and make something fancy. So instead of regular lasagne, here is a lasagne-inspired pasta bake!

I didn't have any flour to even attempt a white sauce, but I saw a video on Facebook that suggested using vegan cream cheese and spinach instead, and it really worked! Much less hassle and it made it super creamy.

I used vegan mince in the red sauce, but you could always replace with lentils or more mushrooms if you prefer. I find most soya mince gives me a really bad stomach ache, but the Waitrose chilled one doesn't as its part soya and part lentils/mushrooms/quinoa! It also gave it a nice varied texture.

This took around an hour to make, and made 4 generous servings.

Ingredients

• 8oz pasta (I used bows!)
• 1 red onion
• 1 can chopped tomatoes (around 400g)
• 250g vegan mince
• 200g chopped mushrooms
• 1 TBSP vegetable oil
• 1 TBSP tomato puree
• 1 TSP dried basil
• Sprinkle of black pepper
• 100g vegan mozzerella
• 1 TBSP nutritional yeast
• 40g / half a medium bag of fresh spinach
• 170g vegan cream cheese

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C.
2. Cook the pasta according to the instructions on the packet. Once done, drain and set aside.
3. While the pasta is cooking, heat the oil in a large frying pan and fry the onion until soft.
4. Add the vegan mince and mushrooms, and fry until both have browned.
5. Add the tomato puree, black pepper, basil and a pinch of salt to the mixture and stir.
6. Add the chopped tomatoes, and simmer until a sauce forms.
7. In a large bowl, add the vegan cream cheese. Then add the spinach gradually, making sure it is combined before adding any more (you might want to chop the spinach if you have particularly large leaves).
8. Once all 3 mixes are done, it's time to assemble! In a large rectangular baking tin, add the pasta as a bottom layer, then a layer of red sauce, then a layer of the 'white sauce'. Keep adding layer by layer, finishing with the white layer, and then add the nooch and a generous layer of vegan mozzerella on top! (If you find you don't have enough white sauce to cover all the layers, you can always fill in the gaps with extra vegan cheese! I found I had 3 layers of each mixture overall).
9. Bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes until the vegan cheese has melted and the pasta on top is crunchy (though if you dislike crunchy pasta, you can bake it covered in tin foil to stop it from crisping up).