Vegetarian Pumpkin Lasagna (GF)

Ok, now that its officially pumpkin season, lets dive into a few dishes that are fun spin on some old favorites! First up, lasagna! I don’t know about you, but for me, lasagna is the comfort food I always enjoyed.

If you’re looking for a creamy cashew pumpkin, savory blend of plant based ingredients and gluten free lasagna then your search is over. This is everything in a lasagna that you dream about when you’re feeling the need for comfort foods!

Now a criticism or comment lets say I just heard was that pumpkin lasagna sounded gross because who wants a sweet lasagna but I beg to differ! That’s what I love about this recipe, you can add as little or as much as you like! If you’re looking for just a taste of something fun and fall to mix up your lasagna or if your a HUGE PUMPKIN FAN then go all in! You can create your own variation of this, which I love!

So my typical lasagna is with only veggies (using eggplant and zucchini as my noodles) but when I did a poll in my Instagram Stories I was surprised to see that all of YOU wanted NOODLES! Who knew?!? That’s why I do the poll! Just because I like something a certain way, I can’t assume that everyone else does as well! So here we are with one of my favorite lasagnas yet!

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Ingredients:

• 1 package brown rice lasagna noodles (or your Gf favorite)

• 1 cup cashews

• 1/2 can - 1 FULL can of pumpkin purée (depending on your desired sweetness level, this is where you can take it down or turn it up on the pumpkin

• 1 bag frozen spinach

• 1- 8 Oz container ricotta

• 1 package Seitan or tempeh

• 2 tbsp grape seed oil

• 1/2 cup nut milk

• 2 cloves garlic

• 1/2 tsp sea salt

• 1/4 tsp cumin

• black pepper

• 2 zucchini

• 1 mozzarella ball OR 1 package of shredded organic mozzarella

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350. And place your cup of cashews and cover with water. Let sit until you’re ready for these. The longer the better. You can also soak these overnight to really let them soften and open up.

2. Boil in a large pot approx 6-8 cups water. Add noodles, cover and simmer until soft. Follow package directions depending on the noodles. Zucchini should be sliced into thin “noodle-like” slices approx 1/4” thick.

3. Let noodles drain in strainer while starting to prep the “meat”. Chop seitan or tempeh into small chunks. Chop the garlic, onion and zucchini as well.

4. On the stovetop get a sauté onion ready with your oil. Add in the garlic and chopped onion. Once that is browned add your seitan AND your seasoning: cumin, sea salt, back pepper. Let sauté on medium-low until seitan is slightly browned, approx 5-6 minutes. Set aside

5. Prepare your ricotta layer by putting ricotta and spinach into large bowl. Mix well with spoon until evenly distributed. Set aside

6. Rinse and drain your cashews. Add to blender with pumpkin and nut milk. Continue to blend until smooth. You can add more nut milk here is desired to get the consistency right.

7. Layer bottom layer of baking pan with oil. Place first row of noodles to cover bottom. Then start with your first layer of the ricotta blend. Only use about 1/2 of the mixture.

8. next layer with your zucchini. Followed by 1/3 of cashew pumpkin mixture and 1/3 of meat mixture.

9. Repeat #7 with noodles then remaining ricotta. Then repeat step #8. Place one more layer of noodles followed by remaining 1/3 of cashew mixture and top with cheese.

10. Bake @350 for 40 minutes or until top is golden around the edges and cheese is cooked through.