Truly the BEST Vegan Lasagna Ever
This vegan lasagna is in my top five favorite recipes I’ve ever created. It is layered with homemade basil sunflower seed cheese, shiitake and portobello tomato sauce, and a blend of cashew parmesan and shredded mozzarella. This recipe is ridiculously flavorful, delicious, and straightforward to make!
Tell me about this basil sunflower seed cheese!
This stuff is the BEST! I blend softened sunflower seeds, fresh basil leaves, miso paste, lemon juice, almond milk, garlic powder, and salt until extremely smooth. Then, I stir in fresh chopped parsley for some extra flavor and color. The seed cheese has a slightly tangy, earthy, and cheesy flavor. Not only is it tasty in this lasagna, but I think it would be delicious spread on crackers, too! P.S. it doesn’t taste like sunflower seeds in the lasagna WHATSOEVER! I promise!
Now tell me about the mushroom tomato sauce!
This sauce is super simple. I saute diced yellow onion, shiitake and portobello mushrooms, and fresh garlic until softened. I season this with salt and pepper and add in store-bought tomato sauce to save myself some time and labor. Feel free to use a tomato sauce from scratch, such as this marinara, if you’d like!
What cheese is used in this lasagna?
I make a simple homemade cashew parmesan and mix it with store-bought shredded vegan mozzarella. Raw cashews, nutritional yeast, garlic powder, and salt are blended to create the parmesan. It is ridiculously delicious and adds an extra lovely cheesy flavor to the dish. You can use whatever shredded vegan mozzarella you would like. It just depends on your personal preference.
Time to layer everything!
The layering is super fun, in my opinion. I love seeing all the elements of the dish finally come together into one. This lasagna has three layers. It goes noodles, basil sunflower seed cheese, mushroom tomato sauce, and then the parmesan-mozzarella blend. These steps are repeated two more times, giving you three layers of everything. It’s then wrapped in foil and baked to melty perfection.
This truly is the best vegan lasagna ever, in my opinion.
It is incredibly flavorful! It’s saucy, cheesy, and almost even meaty. My goal wasn’t to make this lasagna meaty, but it has a slightly similar meat-like look, flavor, and feel because of the mushrooms. They give a fantastic umami flavor to the dish. Then the basil sunflower seed cheese adds a beautiful, earthy, and herby flavor with a creamy texture. I am OBSESSED with this recipe, and I think you will be too if you give it a try!
If you make this vegan lasagna, don’t forget to post a picture to Instagram, tag me @chefsummerstorm, and #gardengrub so I can see your recreation!
Truly the BEST Vegan Lasagna Ever
Ingredients
- 9 vegan lasagna noodles
Parmesan-Mozzarella Blend
- 1/2 cup plain, raw cashews
- 2 tbsp nutritional yeast
- 1/4 tsp garlic powder
- 1/2 tsp kosher salt
- 4 cups shredded vegan mozzarella of choice
Basil Sunflower Seed Cheese
- 1 cup plain, raw, shelled sunflower seeds, soaked in water for a minimum of 2 hours to soften them
- 1/2 cup fresh basil leaves, TIGHTLY packed
- 2 tbsp sweet white miso paste
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
- 2 tbsp plain, unsweetened almond milk
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 1 tsp kosher salt
- 2 tbsp fresh parsley, finely chopped
Mushroom Tomato Sauce
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1/2 cup yellow onion, small diced (roughly half of an onion)
- One 5 ounce package shiitake mushrooms, thinly sliced (roughly 3 cups sliced)
- 1 cup baby portobello mushrooms, thinly sliced
- 2 tbsp fresh garlic cloves, minced
- 1/2 tsp kosher salt
- 1/4 tsp black pepper
- Two 24 ounce jars of your favorite tomato sauce (I use the tomato & basil sauce by Newman's Own.)
Instructions
- Cook the lasagna noodles al-dente and according to its specific package instructions. *Make sure to salt the cooking water generously. I usually end up boiling my noodles for only 10 minutes. Then, drain and rinse the lasagna noodles under cold water until they are no longer warm. Coat the noodles in a splash of olive oil to prevent them from sticking together. Set aside.
Parmesan-Mozzarella Blend
- Add the raw cashews, nutritional yeast, garlic powder, and salt into a food processor. Blend until it resembles finely ground parmesan.
- Place the cashew parmesan and shredded vegan mozzarella into a medium-sized bowl and mix to combine. Set aside.
Basil Sunflower Seed Cheese
- Drain and rinse off the soaked sunflower seeds.
- Add all of the seed cheese ingredients, except for the parsley, into a high powered blender. Blend until extremely smooth. Scrape down the insides of the blender as needed.
- Scrape the seed cheese into a bowl and stir in the chopped parsley. Place a piece of plastic wrap directly onto the cheese. This helps any oxidation from occurring, which could cause the seed cheese to slightly turn brown. Set aside.
Mushroom Tomato Sauce
- Place a large, deep saute pan or a stockpot over medium heat. Once hot, add in the olive oil and diced yellow onion. Cook for 3 minutes, stirring as needed.
- Add in the shiitake and portobello mushrooms and minced garlic. Cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
- Season with the salt and pepper.
- Turn the heat off, add in the jars of tomato sauce, and stir to combine.
How to Assemble and Cook the Lasagna
- Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Inside a 9" by 13" baking dish, spread down 1/2 cup of the tomato sauce. Try to scoop and spread out just the sauce and not any of the mushrooms. The sauce is put down to prevent the noodles from sticking to the dish and drying out.
- Lay 3 noodles down the long way. Spread across 1 hefty tablespoon of seed cheese across EACH noodle. Then, spread across 2 cups of the mushroom tomato sauce over the entire dish. Lastly, sprinkle over 1 cup of the parmesan-mozzarella cheese blend over the entire dish.
- Repeat those same layering steps two more times, for a total of 3 layers. You may notice that the top layer has extra cheese, and it should! There will be about 2 cups of the cheese blend going on top, instead of 1 cup like the other two layers got.
- Now, wrap the top of the baking dish with tin foil and place it on the middle oven rack. Bake the lasagna for 50 minutes.
- Allow the lasagna to rest for about 5-10 minutes and then cut it twice through the long way and three times through the short way to give you 12 squares.
- Top the lasagna with a little bit of chopped parsley for garnish, if you'd like.
Tiparooskis
Welcome to the tip section of the vegan lasagna! Here I provide my top tips to help you perfect the recipe. Sometimes, I also give substitute suggestions that I think you may find helpful.
- Hate mushrooms!? Use vegan ground beef instead! This swap would make the vegan lasagna taste more authentic. I haven’t done it this way, as I LOVE mushrooms, but I know it would taste delicious still!
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2 Comments
Christine
This was INCREDIBLE!! Simple ingredients and soooo tasty. Very excited to have found this!
garden grub
That is AWESOME to hear, Christine! This is one of my favorite comfort food recipes, so I am so glad you enjoyed it! Thank you for giving it a try!