How to add Hidden Veggies to Every Layer of Your Lasagna

One of my favorite meals to make on Sunday night is lasagna. It takes longer to make than most of my go-to weekday meals and I love having the leftovers to enjoy during the week. I also love that I can get all of the clean up finished while it’s in the oven. I usually cook it in a pan like this so that I can just cover it and store the leftovers right in the baking dish!

These are my tips and tricks for sneaking veggies into every layer of my lasagna.

The Sauce Layer

Even if I am making a hidden veggie lasagna, I generally still add meat. I usually opt for ground turkey since it is healthier and especially covered in all the sauce-y cheese-y great-ness, you can’t even tell. Into the ground turkey mixture, I add a decent number of vegetables. A few favs for this layer: onion, carrot, garlic and/or mushroom. I usually chop these up fairly tiny so that once I add the sauce it all just blends together perfectly.

The Cheese Layer

I love to use ricotta for my cheese layer, though you can of course also use mascarpone. Into the ricotta, I usually mix an egg and half of a lemon (both the zest and juice), plus salt and pepper to taste. I also add chopped spinach (usually fresh but you can do frozen too) and/or grated zucchini (don’t forget to squeeze out the water).

The Pasta Layer

This is one of my favorite hidden veggie tricks! I love to thinly slice vegetables (usually eggplant, zucchini or squash) and add them in instead of a layer or two of the pasta. As long as I do at least half and half pasta/veggie, I usually can’t even tell that it’s not 100% pasta!

Does anyone else have a favorite hidden veggie recipe?

Let us know what you think!