lil carb Lasagna

Oh how I love lasagna. It's one of my favorites!  I haven't had a piece of "traditional" lasagna in almost 2 years- don't be sad for me though! Since I love it so much I went to great lengths to create a lower carb version that is in pretty tight competition with the comfort food original. Although, I must confess...surprisingly, I didn't have to work too hard to make this dish lower carbs so the 'great lengths' I mentioned earlier are a lil exaggerated.  I started by subbing the lasagna noodles for zucchini that I sliced on a mandolin. After I did that I found that the rest of the ingredient were fairly low carb already.  I make my own marinara sauce but you could certainly use a jar of your favorite sauce. I also love a cheesy lasagna so there will be plenty of mozzarella in this version too!  Only thing missing is the garlic bread... if only I could make THAT low carb ha!  Maybe some day- a girl can dream right?!

There are 4 main parts to my lasagna: zucchini noodles, tomato sauce, cheese filling, and meat filling.

I started off by slicing zucchinis on a mandolin.  If you don't have a mandolin slice them thin and try to make them as uniform as possible. 

Zucchinis have a lot of water in them. If I cooked the zucchinis in the lasagna raw like this they would turn the bottom of the lasagna into soup.  How do I know this?  It has happened to me. So to make sure it doesn't happen to you- lay the zucchini slices on a paper towel and sprinkle them with salt.  Let them sit for at least 30 minutes and then place another paper towel on top and squish down on each slice to get the water out. 

While the zucchini is sitting I started on the protein for my lasagna.  Today I decided to use mild Italian sausage. Mmm- sausage is my favorite for adding into a lasagna and they sell it now already ground up without any casings which is the best- you just put it on the stove and brown it!  I must confess I may have sprinkled red pepper flake onto my sausage hehe.

Next component is the cheese filling. 

I added in ricotta cheese, garlic, an egg, grated mozzarella cheese, garlic salt, pepper, dried oregano, dried basil, crushed red pepper and onion powder.

I already had my sauce warming on low heat on the stove.

If you would like to try one of my sauce recipes go HERE!

-Nothing better than tomato sauce fog!-

So now that my 4 components are ready lets make a lasagna!

I start with sauce on the bottom.

Warning- this can get messy but no one will know because the baking dish gets filled to the top!

Next is a layer of zucchini strips.

Followed by a smoothed out layer of the cheese filling.

Then a layer of our browned sausage.

Next is the grated mozzarella!

Then you do it all over again...

For the top layer I add on a little more sauce and the rest of my cheese. 

Feel free to use more or less!

This gets popped into the oven and in about 40 minutes and a miracle happens!...

Beautiful! Gorgeous! Lasagna!!! 

Now.  Does this look like anything but a traditional lasagna?! You would never know! And if you try this recipe you might prefer it over the pasta version. After I eat this I don't feel sluggish or want to take a nap.  When dinners are low carb I'm still able to function after eating them. I used to hate feeling full and fat and blah after eating a really good meal. Now I can still enjoy the flavors of a tasty meal with a few tweeks to make it low carb. 

Lil Carb Lasagna: - Serves 4-6

15-20 zucchini slices, about 2 medium sized zucchinis

About 2 cups of marinara sauce or use MY SAUCE RECIPE 

4 oz mozzarella cheese, grated 

16 oz Italian sausage, hot or mild 

Cheese Filling:

15 oz ricotta cheese, I use whole milk ricotta

2 cloves of garlic, minced

4 oz mozzarella, grated 

1/4-1/2 tsp red pepper flake (optional)

1/2 tsp garlic salt

1/8 tsp dried basil

1/4 tsp dried oregano

1/4 tsp pepper

1/2 tsp onion powder

1 egg, scrambled

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Heat sauce on low heat.  Brown sausage and drain off excess grease, set aside. Combine all cheese filling ingredients and mix well. Slice zucchinis on a mandolin or by hand and spread out on a paper towel, sprinkle with salt to get some of the moisture out. Let sit for at least 30 minutes and squeeze between two paper towel until most of the liquid feels like it is out. To assemble the lasagna I used an 8X8 square baking dish. Put enough sauce in the bottom to cover then top with zucchini slices.  Then half of the cheese filling followed by half of the sausage mixture.  Cover the sausage with half of the remaining mozzarella cheese. Repeat the steps again- sauce>zucchini slices>cheese filling>sausage>lil sauce then top with rest of the mozzarella cheese.  Bake at 375 degrees for 35-45 minutes. Just enough to get a nice cheese crust and bubbling sauce.