A friend recently gifted us 2 jars of his mom’s canned tomatoes. As much as grocery store bought tomato sauce is convenient, there’s something deliciously satisfying in knowing you made your own sauce especially when you look at the ingredients on many brands (added sugar being a big pet peeve of mine). My homemade sauce also gives this recipe a fresh light flavour.
This recipe is so simple you can easily make it on a weeknight.
I made 8 roll-ups with the ingredients listed below.
INGREDIENTS
Tomato Sauce:
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 medium onion, diced
- 1 -2 large cans of crushed/stewed tomatoes
- 3 garlic cloves, minced
- 3 teaspoons dried basil
- 2 teaspoons dried oregano
- 1 cup chopped fresh parsley
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 2 teaspoons nutritional yeast (optional)
- salt and pepper, to taste
- Filling:
- 3 bundles of fresh spinach chopped and blanched for 2 minutes in hot water (or thawed frozen spinach if you prefer)
- 15 ounces ricotta cheese
- 2 cups mozzarella cheese, shredded
- ⅔ cup parmesan cheese, shredded
- 1 large egg
- Noodles:
- 8 lasagna noodles (oven ready). Place them in a pan and add boiling water over them. Soak for 15 – 20 minutes until soft.
INSTRUCTIONS
- Tomato Sauce:
- Heat the olive oil over medium-heat in a medium sauce pan, add in the diced onions and saute until the onions are translucent. Stir in the crushed tomatoes, minced garlic, dried basil, dried oregano, garlic powder, nutritional yeast and chopped parsley. Cover with a lid and allow the sauce to simmer for at least 20 minutes over low-to-medium heat.
- Filling:
- Prepare your filling by mixing together the spinach, ricotta cheese, 1 and ½ cups mozzarella cheese, parmesan cheese, and egg in a large bowl.
- Once the noodles are soft enough to roll you can start filling them.
- Assemble:
- Spread the spinach cheese filling evenly along length of the noodles. Roll the noodles. Pour 1/2 of tomato sauce into the bottom of a baking dish. Place the lasagna roll-ups into the baking dish over the sauce then pour remaining tomato sauce on top of the roll-ups. Sprinkle the remaining mozzarella cheese on top. Bake for 25 minutes at 350 and serve! These freeze well too. It’s great to make a double batch, freeze 1/2 then on a day you really don’t want to cook, thaw, heat and enjoy!
Adults and kids alike will love this twist on regular lasagna. Let me know if you try these!
Love,
Jennifer