Red Bean Lasagne
Red Bean Lasagne
Rated 3.8 stars by 13 users
Category
Servings
6
Cook Time
1 hour
Author:
Amelia Christie-Miller
You won’t believe this lasagne is meat free. We promise you. And it’s also not even a compromise - we argue - IT’S BETTER! There is a time in everyone's month when they crave a a hearty lasagne, loaded with cheese. Serve this up for friends with a nice glass of vino.
Ingredients
5 tbsp olive oil
2 carrots, peeled and finely diced
- 1 celery stalk, peeled and finely diced
500 g mushrooms, finely chopped
- 2 bay leaves (optional)
- 2 small onions or 3 banana shallots, peeled and finely chopped
- 2 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
- 1 tsp mixed herbs or dried oregano
- ½ tsp of chilli flakes, or more depending on your heat tolerance
- 300 ml of red wine or red vermouth
1 x 700 g jar of Bold Bean Co Queen Red Beans (or 2 x 400 g cans of red kidney beans, drained with 200 ml of extra stock)
- 1 x 400 g tin of chopped tomatoes
- 1 veggie or chicken stock cube (even better, use 1 tsp of a high quality paste instead!)
- 100 g parmesan
- A small bunch of basil (roughly 15 g) - (optional)
500-600g white sauce or bechemal (with a grating of nutmeg) (or homemade)
- 350g dried lasagna sheets
- 50g of parmesan cheese or mature cheddar
- 125g ball of mozzarella
Directions
Heat the oil in a large deep saucepan, over a medium heat, and add the carrots, celery, mushroom, bay and onion with ½ a teaspoon of fine salt. Give the mixture a good stir so that the veggies are coated and sweat for 15-20 minutes, stirring intermittently throughout until beginning to soften and the ingredients have shrunk significantly. It may seem like a lot of oil, but when creating a meat-free ragu you need to bring in the fat from elsewhere so don’t be afraid of this!
Add the garlic, mixed herbs (you can use freshly chopped herbs instead if you have them to hand. Rosemary, thyme and parsley work well) and chilli flakes and mix for one minute on a medium-high heat. If there is still some water in the pan from the mushrooms, cook the mixture a little more until this is reduced and some of the base begins to stick to the bottom.
- Pour in the red wine, deglazing any veg that had begun to caramelise at the bottom of the pan, allowing the alcohol to cook off for about 5-8 minutes. Lower the heat and add the red beans with their stock, breaking them up in your hands as you go to allow some to thicken the sauce. If using unsalted cans, make sure to add a good pinch of salt.
- Heat oven to 180C/fan/160C/gas 4 and lightly oil an ovenproof dish (about 30 x 20cm).
- Tip in the chopped tomatoes and mix through. At this point, add the stock paste, if you’re using a cube, break it up with your fingers into the stew and let it dissolve in the liquid of the stew. Bubble for 20 minutes, adding more water if it becomes too dry. Bubble for a further 6-8 minutes if using cans for that softer texture.
Spoon one third of the ragu sauce into the dish, then cover with some lasagne sheets from a 300g pack. Drizzle over roughly a third of the ready-made or homemade white sauce. Top each layer of white sauce with a grating of cheddar or parmesan cheese
Repeat until you have 3 layers of pasta. Cover with the remaining white sauce, making sure you can’t see any pasta poking through.
Scatter 125g torn mozzarella over the top and more cheddar, if you fancy.
- Bake for 45 mins until the top is bubbling and lightly browned.
