Best Vegetable Lasagna
Seriously the best veggie lasagna! This meatless lasagna recipe is packed with bell pepper, zucchini and carrots, sautéed until golden on the edges.
Updated by Kathryne Taylor on August 29, 2024
I set out to create the best vegetable lasagna recipe. Here it is! This vegetarian lasagna is cheesy (of course), and loaded with vegetables, spinach and a simple tomato sauce.
If you have any meatless-meal skeptics in your life, this lasagna will change their mind. I’m sure of it.
This lasagna is based on my spinach artichoke lasagna on the blog and the roasted eggplant lasagna in my cookbook. I love those less-conventional vegetarian lasagnas.
Yet, I wanted to offer a classic vegetable lasagna suitable for holidays and weeknights, and this is it. The tomato sauce is the same across all three recipes, but the vegetables vary.
For this recipe, you’ll chop bell pepper, zucchini and carrot into very small pieces and sauté them until they’re nice and golden on the edges. That caramelization brings out so much more flavor. Then, add spinach to the skillet and cooked it down for a few minutes so it doesn’t get too soggy.
The Best Vegetable Lasagna
Five reasons to love this recipe:
- You can easily adjust the vegetables to suit the seasons or your pantry (see recipe notes).
- The sauce is made from scratch with basic ingredients. It only takes a few minutes to make.
- Use no-boil noodles and you don’t have to bother cooking them. Just layer them up!
- I recommend cottage cheese instead of ricotta, which has more protein and flavor (trust me).
- You can even make this recipe gluten free and/or vegan. See the recipe notes for details.
The end result is a super flavorful, nutrient-dense, veggie-packed lasagna. This lasagna might not be the quickest weeknight option around, but it is a reasonably simple recipe that will absolutely satisfy your comfort food cravings.
Enjoy, and please let me know how this recipe turns out for you in the comments! Your feedback is so important to me.
Craving more vegetable-packed casseroles? Here are more of my favorites:
- Baked Ziti with Roasted Vegetables
- Lentil Baked Ziti
- Better Broccoli Casserole
- Roasted Veggie Enchilada Casserole
Watch How to Make Vegetable Lasagna
Best Vegetable Lasagna
Seriously the best veggie lasagna! This lasagna recipe is packed with bell pepper, zucchini and carrots, sautéed until golden and tender on the edges. Recipe yields one 9-inch lasagna, enough for 8 slices.
Ingredients
Veggies and spinach
- 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
- 3 large carrots, chopped (about 1 cup)
- 1 red bell pepper, chopped
- 1 medium zucchini, chopped
- 1 medium yellow onion, chopped
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 5 to 6 ounces baby spinach
Tomato sauce (or substitute 2 cups prepared marinara sauce)
- 1 large can (28 ounces) diced tomatoes
- ¼ cup roughly chopped fresh basil + additional for garnish
- 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
- 2 cloves garlic, pressed or minced
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes
Remaining ingredients
- 2 cups (16 ounces) low-fat cottage cheese, divided
- ¼ teaspoon salt, to taste
- Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
- 9 no-boil lasagna noodles*
- 8 ounces (2 cups) freshly grated low-moisture, part-skim mozzarella cheese
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit.
- To prepare the veggies: In a large skillet over medium heat, warm the olive oil. Once shimmering, add the carrots, bell pepper, zucchini, yellow onion, and salt. Cook, stirring every couple of minutes, until the veggies are golden on the edges, about 8 to 12 minutes.
- Add a few large handfuls of spinach. Cook, stirring frequently, until the spinach has wilted. Repeat with remaining spinach and cook until all of the spinach has wilted, about 3 minutes. Remove the skillet from the heat and set aside.
- Meanwhile, to prepare the tomato sauce: Pour the tomatoes into a mesh sieve or fine colander and drain off the excess juice for a minute. Then, transfer the drained tomatoes to the bowl of a food processor. Add the basil, olive oil, garlic, salt, and red pepper flakes.
- Pulse the mixture about 10 times, until the tomatoes have broken down to an easily spreadable consistency. Pour the mixture into a bowl for later (you should have a little over 2 cups sauce). Rinse out the food processor and return it to the machine.
- Pour half of the cottage cheese (1 cup) into the processor and blend it until smooth, about 1 minute. Transfer the mixture to large mixing bowl. No need to rinse out the bowl of the food processor this time; just put it back onto the machine because you’ll need it later.
- Transfer the cooked veggies and spinach mixture to the bowl of the food processor. Pulse until they are more finely chopped (but not puréed!), about 5 to 7 times, stopping to scrape down the sides as necessary. Transfer the mixture to the bowl of whipped cottage cheese. Top with the remaining cottage cheese, then add ¼ to ½ teaspoon salt (to taste) and lots of freshly ground black pepper. Stir to combine. Now it’s lasagna assembly time!
- Spread ½ cup tomato sauce evenly over the bottom of a 9” by 9” baking dish. Layer 3 lasagna noodles on top (snap off their ends to fit, and/or overlap their edges as necessary). Spread half of the cottage cheese mixture evenly over the noodles. Top with ¾ cup tomato sauce, then sprinkle ½ cup shredded cheese on top.
- Top with 3 more noodles, followed by the remaining cottage cheese mixture (we’re skipping the tomato sauce in this layer.) Sprinkle ½ cup shredded cheese on top.
- Top with 3 more noodles, then spread ¾ cup tomato sauce over the top (you may have a little sauce leftover) to evenly cover the noodles. Sprinkle evenly with 1 cup shredded cheese.
- Wrap a sheet of parchment paper or foil around the top of the lasagna (don’t let it come into contact with the cheese). Bake, covered, for 18 minutes, then remove the cover, rotate the pan by 180° and continue cooking for about 10 to 15 more minutes, until the top is turning spotty brown.
- Remove from oven and let the lasagna cool for 15 to 20 minutes, so it has time to set and cool down to a reasonable temperature. Sprinkle additional basil over the top, then slice and serve.
Notes
*Lasagna noodle recommendations: I like to use DeLallo’s Whole Wheat Lasagna Noodles (affiliate link) and Whole Foods’ 365 No-Boil Lasagna Noodles. See below for gluten-free suggestions.
Change it up: Feel free to play around with the vegetables here. You’ll want to use about 3 cups chopped veggies total (excluding the onion). Mushrooms or butternut squash might be nice!
Make it gluten free: Substitute gluten-free lasagna noodles. Choose no-boil (oven ready) noodles if possible; if not, cook them according to package directions. (Fair warning, I tried using DeBoles brand of no-bake lasagna noodles and they weren’t done cooking in the time specified here. Reheated leftovers were ok, though.)
Make it dairy free/vegan: Double the recipe for my vegan sour cream (also available in my cookbook, page 217) and use 2 cups instead of the cottage cheese. Skip the step where you would blend the cottage cheese and just barely blend the spinach/veggies into the sour cream. Omit the mozzarella and use all of the tomato sauce for the final layer. Serve the lasagna with a dollop of additional sour cream on top or, better yet, my basil pesto.
Nutrition
The information shown is an estimate provided by an online nutrition calculator. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice. See our full nutrition disclosure here.
It was delicious! Substituted ricotta instead of cottage cheese and it turned out amazing. My family raved about it. I will definitely be adding this to my recipe rotation!
Wonderful to hear you enjoyed it, Audi! Thank you for your review.
Made this twice already, and will be making it many many more times
Hi, Kate! Every time I’ve had cottage cheese I haven’t liked it, but I’ve only tasted it by itself. I was worried of doing this with cottage cheese, but am interested in making it healthier and with more protein – do you think a half cottage cheese and half ricotta would work? Or does the cottage cheese blend and not taste like cottage cheese by the end?
Looking forward to making this! Thanks!
Hi! You could use ricotta, that will work too.
I also don’t like cottage cheese, so the first time I made this I made it with Ricotta. Turned out great. Then I switched to cottage cheese and it was wonderful too! Didn’t taste like cottage cheese to me.
I made this with homemade lasagna noodles, which made it even better. I used less zucchini and added broccoli. I think next time I’ll add mushrooms for a more meaty texture. I diced pretty fine so I’m not sure if the food processing was really necessary.
I think this was my second time following this recipe, but pretty much my second time ever making lasagna period! It was a hit with my family! We only got 6 servings but I definitely could have easily made double the amount cuz I pretty much had all the ingredients! And yes! A bit labor intensive but so worth it!
This happened to me before- but I didn’t seem to have enough tomatoe sauce or mozzarella cheese- I tried to be conservative spreading it in the first few layers but had trouble covering the top top layers!
Otherwise DELICIOUS!
Wonderful to hear you loved it, Lisa!
This is delicious!!! Even my veggie-hesitant kid gave it two thumbs up. Made some slight modifications. Added about 1.5 times the veggies and used my ninja blender instead of a food processor to fully puree them for better hiding. It filled a 9×11 pan right to the top and took almost an hour to cook so we’re eating a bit later than planned. Next time I will plan accordingly.
I love it! Thank you for sharing, Amelia. I appreciate your review.
This lasagna is fantastic! I’ve made many veggie lasagnas but this will be my new go-to. It took me longer than 30 minutes to put it together but I doubled everything and made a large pan AND it was worth every minute! I did add mushrooms and a LOT of garlic but followed the rest of the recipe. I think using the food processor on the cottage cheese and the veggies was the magic bullet!
Thank you so much for sharing this jewel! :)
Wonderful, Kelly! I’m happy to hear it.
Wonderful, thank you! Delicious flavor, I especially loved tomato sauce.
Next time I’d like to try only putting shredded mozzarella on the top, not in the middle, in order to make it a bit healthier. Would that cause a problem?
Hi! If you would like less cheese, you can do that. It should turn out ok.
Love this recipe, thank you! I made it in a 9×13 pan; to make it turn out well and cook the noodles enough, I doubled the amounts for everything except for the no boil noodles, I layered two noodles wherever it said to layer 3. It is a big hit!
That’s great to hear, Sarah! Thank you for your review.
What a brilliant recipe! I swapped the cottage cheese for ricotta (like others, lol!) and used pre-made marinara. It was such an easy dish to make. I reused the pan I sautéed the veggies in to add the ricotta to lessen the amount of dishes to clean. It was so quick to put together and my husband loved it! I will definitely make this again.
Hello Kate, I made this last night with added homemade marinated seitan, which I also “soaked” with red wine and balsamic vinegar. Blown away by the taste of it all! Question: for how many days can leftovers be stored in the fridge? And what about freezing them? Thanks!
Hi! I don’t have a freezing method perfected yet, but I know others haven’t minded it frozen. I does make good leftovers too!
I love your recipes!
I recently made the lasagna in the “Love Real Food” cookbook for the second time (recipe is similar to this one). It was so good the first time but my husband is not an eggplant fan so I replaced it with zucchini the second time around. But, when it was time to bake it, I was confused about what temperature to use. The oven was originally set to 425 to roast the vegetables but the lasagna noodle box recommends baking at 350. Which temperature should I use?
Thanks so much for sharing your wonderful cooking with us.
Hi! I’m glad you love the a lasagna in my cookbook. You will want to follow the directions on my blog for everything to get cooked through. I hope you love it.
Hi Kate,
Thank you for this delicious recipe. As I live in the Netherlands I have to convert the units but thanks to the internet I manage :-) Just a question though about the tomatoes, could I also use fresh ones (after I remove the skin)? I had to use a lot of cans and throw away quite some tomato juice. Thank you in advance for your reply and keep up the good work!
You’re welcome, Sonja! I haven’t tried fresh, but that could work. I like the flavor of canned.
I tried the lasagne, the taste was very good! However when I try to cut a slice , it was very soft and the doesn’t maintain its consistency. What else can be done to correct this ?
Hi! I’m sorry to hear you don’t love the texture. Did you cook the vegetables long enough? If they weren’t cooked long enough then there would be extra moisture.
Hi Kate, I made the veggie lasagna! Love, Love, Love it. I added squash and zucchini. I used a vidalia onion along with the spinach and carrots. I am a new Vitamix user so the blending/chopping veggies, along with blending the cottage cheese was a scare but I made it through. My sautéed veggies were soft enough that I didn’t have to blend them. I will certainly make again! Thank you!
Thank you for sharing, Rose! I’m happy to hear that.
Oh so amazing, just made it for the kids and I for our meat free Monday! Kids hate veggies but they ate it faster than they eat pizza!
Only feedback I can offer is can you please put metric units in brackets for us Aussies, we are huge fans here!
Then it is a winner! Thank you for sharing, Dee.
I never comment on blogs but I have to say – this recipe is a repeat winner in our house. So delicious.
Can I freeze the leftovers as we have so much! (Only 3 of us were eating ahah!)
Hi! I don’t have a recommended method down just yet. But, I believe others haven’t minded the results.
Made this as the recipe states. Absolutely delicious!! It is the best vegetable lasagna ever!
Can I use an 8 X 11.5 pan? Any modifications?
Hi! Pans can vary, so if it’s deep enough for the layers you should be fine.
Cottage cheese? NO. Don’t trust. I’m sorry, but no. Ricotta or nothing. Reasons: flavor, texture, water content. Just no. I’m sorry, no.
Otherwise all your recipes have been 100% for me.
Hi Betty, As noted in the recipe you can use ricotta if you choose. I prefer cottage cheese. I hope you try it!
So delicious! Thank you for this lower calorie, healthy alternative to traditional lasagna. I’m on a low calorie diet so when my husband asked for lasagna for his Valentine’s Day dinner I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to enjoy it along with him. The whole household loved it!
This is amazing! I really struggle to enjoy veggies and have tried going vegeterian multiple times and couldn’t do it! But this lasagne is amazing i can’t stop eating it! Delicious and its healthy too, yay! :)
How can I make this recipe (vegetable lasagna) without using onions. I have someone who is allergic to them. What could I substitute?
Hi, the flavor would be impacted but you can omit. I would suggest adding more of another vegetable to make up for omitting.
Such a wonderful recipe! We had it last night and I couldn’t wait for left overs for lunch today! I used traditional lasagne noodles since that’s all I had on hand and threw in some mushrooms along with the other veggies. I also layered in a 9×13 pan instead of a 9×9 and made it a day ahead. It turned out perfectly! We are not strictly vegetarian but I’m beginning to prefer vegetarian meals over meat and this did not disappoint. My hubby had thirds and my son (who is not great with new foods) declared that “it was actually pretty good!”
Sooo good! Took me longer to make but I made the marinara instead of buying it premade.
I’m glad you liked it, Kelly! I appreciate your review.
Your assembly instructions are missing the vegetable mixture portion of the layers.
Oh sorry, I see what I was missing, please disregard my comment about the assembly missing the veggies!
I’m glad you found it! I hope you loved it, Kim.
Made it. Whole family loved it. We used grain free lasagna noodles and it wasn’t fully cooked so when we warmed up leftovers in oven we left in a bit past warm and that seemed to do the trick. I also used a jar of marinara but imagine it would have tasted way better with the sauce recipe so will have to try once I can get some basil again. Thank you and lave all the veggies in it!
Made this for my two vegetarian friends. Was a huge hit and very easy to put together. Thanks for the great recipe.
This is absolutely a wonderful recipe! Full of flavor, texture! Super job, Kate. I found the no boil noodles a little thin, so I think next time I’ll use regular noodles. But, so many possibilities here to make little changes and still have a great recipe! Thank you!
Thank you for your review, Vicki!
Hi, Kate! We didn’t have a 9×9 dish, so I used 9×11 which resulted in some overflow. Yikes! I’ll use a 9×13 next time. This is my first time EVER using cottage cheese, and I have to say the recipe tasted great! My husband prefers meat in his lasagna, so I might try a hybrid next time. Thank you so much for your recipes! :-)
Hi Leslie! Did you measure your vegetables and cook them down per the recipe? It shouldn’t have been overflow. Or, did your dish seem more shallow as that could explain it too. But, I’m glad you enjoyed it!
Kate, I think we have your standard issue shallow 9×9 pan from a local grocery store rather than a true and deeper baking dish. My husband measured out the vegetables, so I know that wasn’t the problem. It was delicious anyway and we could probably use some new cookware!
Leslie
Hello. My family loves your recipe for vegetable lasagne. I was making it with sauce bechamel but I’m going to try with tomato sauce and the veg sauce separately and see how it turns out. Oh and I put low fat cream cheese because we don’t like ricotta but I love this recipe. Thank you
My friend made this lasagna, and I absolutely fell in love with it!! It was by far the best and most flavourful veggie lasagna I ever had. Fast forward…
I went out and bought all the listed ingredients, and couldn’t find lasagna that you do NOT have to precook. So, I followed the recipe using lasagna noodles I precooked.
After it was baked and had cooled down, I went to slice a piece for myself. For one, it fell apart on my plate. Two, it was very runny. And three, it had zero taste – seriously. It pretty much tasted like water.
Question: do you think if I had used the no-cook noodles, the moisture when baking would have been absorbed by the noodles, and it would not have turned out runny?
I don’t know where I failed, because when my friend made it, it was through the roof incredible!
Thank you for sharing, Betina. To your question, yes the noodles do absorb some of the moisture when it cooks as to why you had a more runny result.
Hello,
Great recipe! I wanted to mention that the bake times given in the recipe are not long enough based on the instructions on no-boil noodles.
I made this for someone and dropped it off unbaked, giving them bake times from the recipe. The 30 minutes of total cook time in the recipe seemed short to me. The next morning I looked at the instructions on the noodle box and it suggested baking 45 minutes covered and 10-12 minutes uncovered. I hope the noodles were cooked when they served the lasagna.
Hi Tim, Thank you for your feedback. I tested this several times with the noodles I suggested and gluten-free as well and it worked well per the instructions. I do know that noodles can vary by brand and ovens vary as well. If you find they aren’t quite done, add a few more minutes.
I was looking for a “healthy” lasagna recipe and found this one. I’m always skeptical when something is called “BEST”, but I always like your recipes so I thought I’d give it a try. And while it may not be the best lasagna I’ve ever had, it is definitely the BEST veggie lasagna! The only thing I did differently is made it a little bigger. Thank you!
Hi! Do you change the tomato sauce amount if you use regular noodles that are boiled prior to assembly??
Hi! I haven’t tried it that way so I can’t say for sure. I would make sure they aren’t cooked all the way so it doesn’t impact the recipe overall. See the gluten free noodle notes for guidance.
Also, instructions on how to freeze??
Hi! I don’t have any just yet. Sorry to disappoint.
This was sooo good as two meat eaters trying to do more vegtables. Added some baby belle mushrooms and what a fabulous lunch! This is certainly a full flavor lasagne!
Mushrooms are delicious in this as well! Thank you for sharing, Tracy.
I have made this MANY times now. Veggies of choice are carrots, red bell, cauliflower, and onion. It is honestly the best lasagna ever!!! Thank you Kate for another total hit! My whole family is obsessed with this :)
I love it! Thank you for sharing, Valerie.
I have read the Q&As about freezing the lasagna after cooking. Has anyone tried freezing the assembled lasagna before cooking? I want to give it to friends to eat at a later date. Either way, can’t wait to make it tomorrow.
Hi! I was wondering if this dish was freezer friendly. If so how would you suggest storing and reheating?
Hi Janine, I don’t have a straight forward answer, as there are a lot of variables. I would recommend looking at the comments to see what others may suggest.
My family and I have eaten vegetarian for just a few weeks. Most every recipe has been meh for one reason or another. Not this one though! It is delicious. The cottage cheese disappears yet adds flavor. The vegetables stand out and there isn’t a whole lot of gloppy cheese. We even ate it cold the next day. Congratulations on a great recipe! I’ll be making this one again!
Thank you, Julie! I’m glad you can enjoy it.
My family and I have eaten vegetarian for just a few weeks. Most every recipe has been meh for one reason or another. Not this one though! It is delicious. The cottage cheese disappears yet adds flavor. The vegetables stand out and there isn’t a whole lot of gloppy cheese. We even ate it cold the next day. BTW – I used a jar sauce. Congratulations on a great recipe! I’ll be making this one again!
Quick question Kate…
Have you tried freezing this recipe. I need to make and freeze some vegetarian meals before a busy time ahead.
Thanks from
Jan, Ladysmith BC
Hi Jan! I don’t have a recommend solutions just yet. I would see what others have tried in the comments. So far, I have had better luck with it cooked, froze and then baked again. Time specifics to baking and thawing, I don’t have recommendations just yet. Sorry!
I am about to make with with regular lasagna noodles, NOT no-boil lasagna noodles, does that make a difference? If so, what do I do differently? Thanks!
Hi Hannah, I would follow my gluten free note suggestion on boiling them some first. Let me know what you think!
Was wondering how many this feeds? Is it for 2,4 or 6 people?
Hi Judith! The serving information is in the recipe card. This one serves 8.
Seriously – not lying with the recipe name! I’ve fixed numerous other vegetarian lasagna recipes and this tops them all. I added a 1/2 cup of diced butternut squash. My daughter said, “next time you make this can you make two and freeze one?” this would make a terrific meal for a friend who needs some TLC! Love it and will make it over and over! ❤️
Thank you, Dana! I’m happy to hear it.
I made this lasagna for my family, and my mother said it was THE best lasagna she had ever had in her life (listen, this woman is almost 79, a retired home-ec teacher, and an amazing cook, so she should know!). This was the second of three recipes I’ve now made from your website and I have absolutely loved them all. You are amazing – thank you so much for sharing your talent!!!
That’s fantastic! Thank you for sharing, Ellie. I appreciate your review.
Hi can you add jarred artichoke to this? If so how much do you recommend? Thanks!!
Hi! Sure, I would just be sure it equals the same amount of vegetables. So, you would want to omit one of the others. One can may work, although I haven’t tried it.