A hearty red ragu sauce and a creamy white bechamel make this vegan lasagna the BEST ever. We made this recipe with different ground beef alternatives (this time with lentils) and it came out delicious all the time.
We love all casserole-type dinners as they are perfect leftovers for lunch the next day. Apart from this yummy lasagna, we regularly make our Vegan Shepherd’s Pie, our Vegan Pot Pie and our Cabbage Lasagna with Spinach Cashew Alfredo recipe.
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How to make vegan lasagna?
It is very similar to how you would make a Classic Italian Lasagna. You need 3 different layers on top of each other at least 3 times, then topped with grated parmesan and baked in the oven. These three layers are:
- vegan ground beef cooked in a bolognese red sauce,
- vegan bechamel sauce, and
- dry pasta sheets.
There is no need to add ricotta, or cottage cheese or any other cream. I saw this video back then, Chef Gennaro explains it in great details on how to make authentic Italian Lasagna.
Best vegan ground beef for lasagna
Our favorite ground beef substitute is TVP (textured vegetable protein). This is the closest you can get to the real ground beef texture and taste without the fatty and greasy part nonetheless. We used TVP in our Vegan Cabbage Lasagna recipe. We show you there how to prepare it through step-by-step photos and instructions including a quick video.
Then why did we make this lasagna with lentils?
There are numerous advantages of using lentils in dishes like lasagna:
- Lentils are pantry staples, so easily accessible.
- If you are in a hurry, you can use canned lentils. So no soaking and no long cooking is needed to get them ready.
- Lentils are allergy-friendly, as they are a nut-free and soy-free alternative that everyone can enjoy.
- Most people like lentils. If you prepare this dish for a non-vegan they will recognize lentils for what they are and will not feel tricked or deceived. Just call it Lentil Lasagna.
Seriously, look at the below picture. Does it look like a hearty lentil bolognese ragu that is perfect for meatless lasagna?
Other vegan ground beef alternatives
Here are some other suggestions. Feel free to choose whichever you like per your taste.
- Cauliflower and walnut mince is a seemingly weird combination but works cauliflower gives the minced texture, while walnut adds meaty richness. If you eat soy-free or prefer a whole foods substitute, we have step-by-step instructions for you to make it within our Vegan Spaghetti Bolognese recipe.
- Mushroom bolognese would be most people’s first choice as they are easy to work with, cheap and familiar ingredients. Although we think that mushroom does not deliver on texture perfectly. It remains too spongy. We only use them in combination with cauliflower and walnut mince and prepare them similarly.
- Tofu could be another alternative, although most people bit hesitant to use it. It is not easy to make tofu crunchy and you can easily end up something too gooey. We rarely use it.
- Quinoa or millet gives a minced texture, but they are so tiny compared to ground beef. We use it in our Best Damn Vegan Chili recipe in combination with other veggies.
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Making bolognese ragu for lasagna
Heat-up your frying pan and let’s make our Homemade Marinara Sauce as a base for our lentil bolognese ragu. (more tips, photos, videos in the original post)
Peel and chop the onion and cook it lightly in olive oil until it turns glossy (photo #1). Add peeled and chopped garlic and cook for 1-2 minutes (photo #2). Now, add sweet paprika powder and stir for a minute before adding the chopped tomatoes, the tomato sauce and the remaining seasoning (basil, oregano, salt, and pepper) and cook for 5 minutes (photo #3). Finally, add the cooked or canned lentils (photo #4) and cook for a couple of minutes.
Making vegan bechamel sauce
We use our Cashew Alfredo Sauce to make a killer white sauce for this lasagna (more tips, photos, videos in the original post).
First, soak cashews in hot water for 20 minutes, then drain it. Add the soaked cashews, one clove of garlic in whole, dairy-free milk and seasoning (nutmeg, nutritional yeast, salt, and pepper) to your blender or food processor (photo #1) and blend them until creamy (photo #2). In this recipe, we used our homemade cashew milk.
Top tips to make perfect creamy vegan white sauce:
- Optional spices – Nutmeg and nutritional yeast are optional ingredients, although they give the alfredo more flavor.
- Raw cashews or roasted cashews? – We usually use roasted cashews especially if we cannot find raw cashews in the cheap. The sauce is PERFECT with roasted cashews. Even if you can only find salted ones, don’t worry, it will be washed off while soaking.
- Which dairy-free milk to choose? – We recommend using cashew, almond, oat or soy milk. Any other milk may alter the taste too much e.g. coconut milk.
Use Vitamix for a crazy smooth sauce
You can certainly use a hand blender (aka immersion blender) or a regular blender. They all make a creamy sauce. However, if you need this sauce to be extra smooth without a single little piece to find, we recommend using a high powered blender like Vitamix. It will make it from smooth to crazy smooth.
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Layering your Vegan Lasagna
This recipe will give you 4 servings and we used a 9 x 7 x 3 inch (23 x 18 x 8 cm) large oven-safe dish. We made 6 layers of pasta, 7 layers of ragu and 7 layers of white sauce. You can use less pasta and more sauce in-between the sheets, it is totally up to you. (In the below photo we used spinach lasagna pasta sheets, that’s why they are green.)
You don’t want your pasta layer at the bottom as it may stick to it while backing. We recommend that you start with a thin layer of lentil bolognese sauce (photo #1), then pasta sheets to cover up the whole ragu (photo #2). Then, ragu again and white sauce (photo #3). Then pasta again (photo #4), ragu, white sauce and so on. The last layer should be the white sauce. You can sprinkle it with grated vegan cheese or vegan parmesan or more nutritional yeast.
Pre-heat oven for 400 F (200 degrees) and bake your lasagna for 30 minutes.
FAQs and Substitutions
How to store lasagna?
All casserole-type dishes are great for batch cooking. You can easily store it in the fridge for 3-4 days without any problem.
Can you freeze it?
Store any leftovers per serving (in an air-tight container) in a freezer and thaw whenever you need it.
This Vegan Lasagna recipe is meat-free, dairy-free and egg-free.
This recipe is WFPB-friendly 1) if you cook the onions for the marinara sauce in water or in veggie broth or directly in the tomato sauce and 2) if you use oil-free dairy-free cheese.
This recipe is only gluten-free if you use gluten-free lasagna pasta sheets.
⇒ Get our FREE 7-DAY VEGAN MEAL PLAN now! or check out all vegan meal plan recipes here! ⇐
More dinner recipes
You can browse through our Vegan and Gluten-free Dinner Recipes or our Quick Vegan Meals collection or check out
- Vegan Portobello Fajitas
- Easy Vegan Eggplant Meatballs
- Hidden Vegetable Pasta Sauce
- Easy Vegan Mac and Cheese
- Cauliflower Steak with Green Peppercorn Sauce
Super Easy Vegan Lasagna with Lentils
Equipment
Ingredients
Lentil Bolognese Ragu
- 1 Onion (medium)
- 2 cloves Garlic
- 3 ½ cup Brown lentils canned (15-oz can) or cooked
- 14 oz Chopped tomatoes 1 can
- 5 oz Tomato sauce
- 1 tsp Sweet paprika powder
- 2 tsp Oregano
- 2 tsp Basil
- Salt and Pepper to taste
Vegan Bechamel Sauce
- 1/2 cup Cashew
- 1/2 cup Dairy-free milk
- 1 clove Garlic
- 1 Tbsp Nutritional yeast
- 1/2 tsp Nutmeg optional
- Salt and Pepper to taste
Other ingredients for the layers
- 12 Gluten-free lasagna pasta sheets or these GFV green lentil lasagna pasta sheets
- 7 oz Dairy-free cheese or vegan parmesan or more nutritional yeast
Instructions
Initial preparations
- Soak cashews in hot water for 20 minutes, then drain it.
Making lentil bolognese sauce
- Peel and chop the onion and cook it lightly in olive oil until it turns glossy. Add peeled and chopped garlic and cook for 1-2 minutes.
- Add the chopped tomatoes, the tomato sauce and the seasoning (sweet paprika powder, basil, oregano, salt, and pepper) and cook for 5 minutes.
- Add the cooked or canned lentils and cook for 1-2 minutes.
Making vegan bechamel sauce
- Use a regular blender, a hand blender, or a food processor, whichever gives you a creamier result.
- Add the soaked cashews, 1 clove of garlic in whole, dairy-free milk and seasoning (nutmeg, nutritional yeast, salt, and pepper) and blend them until creamy.
Layering the Vegan Lasagna
- To ensure that the pasta sheets do not stick to the bottom, we place a thin layer of lentil bolognese ragu at the bottom.
- After that, the layers should look like the following: pasta sheets, bolognese sauce, white sauce.
- And repeat... We needed the above combination 6 times to fill a 9 x 7 x 3 inch (23 x 18 x 8 cm) oven-safe dish. The last layer should be white sauce which you can sprinkle with vegan grated cheese or vegan parmesan or more nutritional yeast.
- We made 6 layers of pasta, 7 layers of ragu and 7 layers of white sauce. You can use less pasta and more sauce in-between the sheets, it is totally up to you. (In the photos we used spinach lasagna pasta sheets, that's why they are green.)
- Pre-heat oven for 400 F (200 degrees) and bake your lasagna for 30 minutes.
Notes
Other vegan ground beef alternatives
Here are some other suggestions. Feel free to choose whichever you like per your taste.- TVP (textured vegetable protein) is the closest you can get to the real ground beef texture and taste without the fatty and greasy part nonetheless. We used TVP in our Vegan Cabbage Lasagna recipe. We show you there how to prepare it through step-by-step photos and instructions including a quick video.
- Cauliflower and walnut mince is a seemingly weird combination but works cauliflower gives the minced texture, while walnut adds meaty richness. If you eat soy-free or prefer a whole foods substitute, we have step-by-step instructions for you to make it within our Vegan Spaghetti Bolognese recipe.
- Mushroom bolognese would be most people's first choice as they are easy to work with, cheap and familiar ingredients. Although we think that mushroom does not deliver on texture perfectly. It remains too spongy. We only use them in combination with cauliflower and walnut mince and prepare it similarly.
- Tofu could be another alternative, although most people bit hesitant to use it. It is not easy to make tofu crunchy and you can easily end up something too gooey. We rarely use it.
- Quinoa or millet gives a minced texture, but they are so tiny compared to ground beef. We use it in our Best Damn Vegan Chili recipe in combination with other veggies.
Jisu
Hello,
What should I use instead of cashews? My daughter is allergic to cashews.
Thanks,
My Pure Plants
Hi Jisu, I am not sure whether you can sub cashews to anything else as they are the main ingredient of the alfredo sauce. Maybe you can try a tofu-based vegan ricotta recipe.