Easy Vegan Spinach Lasagna with Tofu Ricotta

It is a super easy lasagna recipe with a hearty marinara sauce and a spinach tofu ricotta filling. Layer them up, ready, set, and bake! You won’t miss any vegan ground beef substitutes here. This vegetarian lasagna recipe will be just as delicious and hearty as any meaty vegan lasagna would be.

If you love casserole-type dishes, check out our vegan shepherd’s pie recipe, our vegan eggplant parmesan recipe, or our vegan moussaka recipe. If you are looking for more spinach recipes, browse through our vegan spinach recipes gallery.

What to expect from this recipe?

Lasagna or lasagne is a popular casserole-type Italian pasta dish where there are 3 alternating layers baked with melted cheese on top. The traditional recipe consists of:

• ground beef cooked in a bolognese ragú sauce,
• bechamel sauce,
• dry or fresh lasagna pasta sheets.

So when you hear spinach lasagna, you might start thinking of where spinach would fit with the above. Is it just a veggie addition to the ragú or is it used instead of the pasta sheets like in eggplant lasagna or cabbage lasagna? It is neither of these things.

Spinach lasagna is actually a vegetarian version of the classic lasagna where ground beef is substituted with a spinach ricotta filling.

If you make this recipe, you’ll get a crumbly juicy vegan ricotta mixed with fresh spinach leaves baked in between a hearty marinara sauce and lasagna noodles.

Ingredients

Spinach lasagna is already a vegetarian recipe so we are one step closer to making it vegan. We have a super easy classic vegan lasagna recipe, from which we pulled some inspiration. So what do we need to make this yummy vegan spinach lasagna in the below photo beside the pasta sheets?

Marinara sauce

We made our vegan marinara sauce recipe and cooked it without adding any vegan ground beef alternative. The difference between Pomodoro sauce and marinara sauce is that the latter is chunky, while the other one is smooth. So what do you need to make a chunky marinara?

• Olive oil
• Red onion -> You can use purple onion, but red onion looks better in this sauce
• Garlic
• Basil -> You can use fresh basil leaves or dried ground basil.
• Oregano -> Same goes here. You either have fresh leaves or use dried ground oregano instead.
• Canned chopped tomatoes -> We used this one since ripe, sweet tomatoes are not always available in the produce section.
• Sieved tomato puree -> You can probably find several type of tomato sauces in the stores. We recommend choosing sieved tomato puree which is thicker and unseasoned.

Spinach tofu ricotta

We kind of combined our 5-ingredient vegan cashew alfredo sauce with crumbled tofu, so the vegan ricotta, in the end, is juicy and not dry. If you need a nut-free version, make our vegan bechamel sauce recipe instead. So what do you need to make a spinach tofu ricotta?

• Firm tofu -> Tofu is usually gluten-free, but always check the packaging.
• Spinach leaves -> If you use frozen leaves, make sure to thaw them and squeeze the water before adding it to the lasagna.
• Soaked cashews
• Dairy-free milk -> We usually use homemade cashew milk, but use any unsweetened plant-based milk.
• Garlic
• Nutritional yeast -> This brings a cheezy, Parmesan cheese-like flavor.
• Nutmeg -> If I have to pick one spice to elevate the flavor of spinach, I would choose nutmeg. You should try it, it fits perfectly just like in our spinach soup recipe.
• Salt and black pepper

🛒 You’ll find detailed measurements for all Ingredients in the printable version of the Recipe Card at the bottom of this post.

Instructions

Marinara sauce

1. Peel and chop onion and garlic.
2. Heat a frying pan or a large skillet over medium heat.
3. Add olive oil, chopped onion, and garlic and saute them for 2-3 minutes until the onion turns tender and opaque.
4. When the onion and the garlic are cooked, add canned chopped tomatoes and canned tomato sauce. Stir well.
5. Add dried basil, oregano, salt, and black pepper. (If you use fresh ingredients, chop them finely.)
6. On low-medium heat, bring the sauce to boil so that the herbs and spices are activated. In the end you will have a sauce just like the one in the below photo.

Spinach tofu ricotta

Get your blender, food processor, or immersion blender. Let’s make a delicious vegan spinach ricotta filling. I promise you it will be super quick and easy, you’ll see.

1. Boil water in a kettle and soak cashews in hot water for 5-10 minutes. You can boil water on the stove and kind of cook the cashews for 5 minutes. When the time is up, drain it. 
2. Add all ingredients: soaked cashews, one clove of garlic in whole, dairy-free milk, nutmeg, nutritional yeast, salt, and black pepper to your blender or food processor. (photo #1)
3. Blend them until creamy. (photo #2)

1. After pressing the tofu, take a large mixing bowl and crumble it with your fingers.
2. Add the cashew white sauce. Stir and mix well.
3. Wash the fresh spinach leaves and chop them in a food processor. Add it to your mixing bowl.

Layering and baking

Let’s talk about metrics so that you know how much vegan spinach lasagna you will get at the end.

• The recipe yields 4 servings.
• We used a 9 x 7 x 3 inch (23 x 18 x 5 cm) large oven-safe dish.
• We made 3 layers of noodles, 4 layers of tomato sauce, and 3 layers of spinach ricotta filling.

Ready, layer, bake! You can watch the recipe video or follow the below steps:

1. You don’t want to have the first layer of noodles just like that at the bottom as they may stick to it while baking. So start with a thin layer of tomato sauce.
2. The next layer is should be the lasagna pasta noodles.
3. Then marinara sauce again.
4. Next up is the vegan spinach ricotta mixture.
5. Then pasta again, marinara next and spinach ricotta mixture again, and so on.
6. The last layer should be marinara sauce. You can sprinkle it with grated vegan mozzarella or vegan parmesan or more nutritional yeast. 

Preheat the oven to 400 Fahrenheit (200 degrees Celsius) and bake your vegan spinach lasagna for 30 minutes. 

FAQs and substitutions

How to store it?

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. 

Can I use frozen spinach instead of fresh leaves?

Absolutely. Let frozen spinach thaw before adding them to your filling. It is important to squeeze any excess water out of it otherwise it will thin your filling significantly. Usually on bag of frozen spinach is 10 oz (280g), which is equal to 1 pound (450g) of fresh leaves. In this recipe we used 4 oz (120g) fresh spinach leaves, so you can substitute it with 2.5 oz (75g) frozen spinach.

Allergen info

This Vegan Spinach Lasagna recipe is meat-free, dairy-free and egg-free.

• Vegan – All ingredients are supposed to be vegan.
• Nut-free – Use our vegan bechamel sauce recipe instead of the cashew white sauce described here to make it nut-free.
• WFPB-friendly (whole foods plant-based) – You can skip the oil, if you sautee onion and garlic in water, vegetable broth, or directly in the tomato sauce. If you add grated vegan cheese use an oil-free alternative. Since white flours are also usually avoided try to find whole wheat lasagna noodles or if you need it to be gluten-free, choose brown rice lasagna noodles or lentil lasagna sheets
• Gluten-free – All ingredients are supposed to be gluten-free but always cook with certified products. If you plan to use oat milk, be sure to buy a certified gluten-free brand. Otherwise, choose another type of dairy-free milk. Lasagna is not gluten-free, so choose GF noodles like these. Unseasoned tofu is supposed to be gluten-free.
• Soy-free – Tofu is a soy product. Sadly I haven’t found a good soy-free alternative that is cheap and easy to buy. Kite Hill does have dairy-free ricotta made of almond milk, but we never tested this recipe with it. Let us know if you do.

More vegan spinach recipes

You can browse through our vegan spinach recipes or check out these.

More vegan casserole-type recipes

You can browse through our vegan gluten-free dinner recipes or check out

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UPDATED: This recipe was originally posted in June 2021. More tips, info, and details have been added and republished in June 2022.