The Best Gluten-Free Vegetarian Lasagna

This stunning gluten-free vegetarian lasagna is made completely from scratch, making it the ultimate comfort food dish to serve for any special dinner! Short on time? Use provided shortcuts to make this recipe quicker! Either way this lasagna is so flavorful and easy to make. It's a special meal the whole family will love!

Here's What You'll Need

• Gluten-Free Lasagna Noodles: These homemade gluten-free egg noodles are so good and so worth it! You'd never know they weren't regular lasagna noodles made with wheat!
• Baby Spinach: Use fresh spinach found in the produce aisle.
• Ricotta Cheese: You can substitute cottage cheese if you can't find Ricotta.
• Parmesan Cheese: Freshly grated, real parmesan cheese is best!
• Eggs: Can be omitted if necessary. No substitutions needed.
• Mozzarella Cheese: Either slices, shredded, or both! I like to use sliced Mozzarella in between the layers and then gluten-free shredded cheese on top.
• For the Sauce: You will use mostly easy to find pantry items; crushed tomatoes, diced tomatoes, tomato paste, onion, garlic, dried Italian seasoning, crushed red pepper, salt, and pepper.

Ingredient Shortcuts

• Lasagna Noodles: If you don't want to make gluten-free noodles from scratch, feel free to use Barilla Gluten-Free Oven-Ready Lasagna. You can use other brands as well, this is just the one I have had the most experience with. Follow the directions on the box as to whether or not you should boil your noodles if you're using another brand.
• Jarred Sauce: Skip the homemade sauce and use your favorite jarred pasta sauce! You'll need about 8 cups, which is 64 ounces total. I am partial to Rao's or Mezzetta!
• Frozen Spinach: Instead of sautéing fresh spinach, feel free to thaw 1 box of frozen chopped spinach. After thawing the spinach according to the package instructions, place the spinach in a piece of cheesecloth or clean kitchen towel and squeeze out as much moisture as you can. If you skip this part your lasagna will be extremely watery!

Recipe Variations

• Meat Sauce: If you love a good meat lasagna, feel free to add that to your sauce! Before making the tomato sauce, brown and crumble 2 pounds of Italian sausage, ground beef, or a combination of the two in your sauté pan, drain the fat and set the cooked sausage aside. Then add the sausage back into the sauce while it simmers.
• Béchamel Sauce: Some lasagna recipes skip the ricotta mixture and use béchamel sauce instead. If that is how you prefer to make lasagna, you can use my recipe for gluten-free béchamel.
• Dairy-Free: Feel free to make this recipe dairy free with a dairy-free ricotta cheese and dairy free mozzarella cheese shreds.
• Vegan: For a vegan lasagna, you'll need some more modifications. You can omit the eggs in the ricotta filling. You can also use vegan ricotta and vegan cheese. As far as the pasta, you'll need to be sure to use a vegan pasta as well, as the pasta used here does contain eggs.
• Add Even More Veggies: Want to add extra veggies to this dish? Sauté diced zucchini, yellow squash, red or green bell peppers, mushrooms, or eggplant along with the onions when you're making the sauce. How many veggies is really up to you! 1-2 cups total of diced veggies would be a good amount to add to the sauce. Be sure to sauté the veggies until tender and allow excess moisture to evaporate before adding the tomatoes to the sauce.
• Use Zucchini Noodles: Feel free to substitute the pasta with thinly sliced zucchini noodles if desired.

How To Make and Assemble Lasagna

Making lasagna from scratch can seem like a daunting task, but it's actually simple to make when broken down into steps. You can even do these steps across multiple days if you'd like. In short, you'll make your fresh pasta, make the tomato sauce and ricotta filling, then you'll assemble the lasagna. Let's get started and walk through the process so you can see it all from start to finish!

Step 1: Make the Pasta

Be sure to head over to the gluten-free lasagna sheets recipe to see all the details on how to make the best homemade lasagna noodles! Everything you need to know is there and this post would be entirely too long to include all over again here. You can do this up to three days in advance.

If you just can't fathom making fresh pasta, please use store-bought noodles! I promise the lasagna will still be just as delicious!

Step 2: Make the Tomato Sauce and Ricotta Filling

1. Sauté the spinach in a pan with garlic and crushed red pepper until wilted. Remove from the pan to cool.
2. In the same pan, sauté the onion and garlic. Then add your dried spices.
3. Next, add the canned tomatoes to the pan and simmer on low for at least 30 minutes.
4. While the sauce simmers, stir together the spinach, ricotta, eggs, and parmesan cheese.

Step 3: Assemble the Lasagna

Once all of your components are ready, it's time for the fun part, assembling the lasagna!

1. Grab your desired casserole dish or a 9x13 inch pan. Layer some tomato sauce in the bottom of the pan.
2. Place a layer of noodles on top. Don't worry if the noodles don't reach right to the edge of the pan. They can, but a little space is also ok. Also, don't waste noodles with a lot of overlap, a single layer is perfect!
3. On top of your noodles, add a layer of the ricotta cheese mixture.
4. Followed by a layer of mozzarella cheese!
5. Now you're back to the beginning of the layering process, so it's time for another layer of tomato sauce.
6. Followed by pasta, ricotta filling, cheese, and another layer of sauce.
7. To finish the lasagna, place one final layer of pasta on top of your last tomato sauce layer.
8. Then top with more tomato sauce and a sprinkle of mozzarella cheese.

Now that your lasagna is layered, either cover the pan with aluminum foil and bake or store the dish in the refrigerator until you're ready to bake it!

To bake lasagna, keep the dish covered with foil. Bake until the casserole is bubbly. Remove the foil for the last 15 minutes to brown the cheese a bit.

What to Serve with Lasagna

To make lasagna a complete meal, you don't need a whole lot of extra items! Keep it simple and serve lasagna with a tossed salad and a side of gluten-free garlic bread.

How to Make It Ahead

You can make this lasagna, or any of the separate components, about 1-2 days in advance. Keep the casserole, or components, refrigerated until you're ready to assemble or bake.

When you're ready to bake the lasagna, allow the casserole dish to come to room temperature for about one hour before putting it in the oven. This will help to prevent thermal shock from cracking your casserole dish.

Also note, your lasagna may take a little longer to bake if it is cold.

How to Freeze Lasagna

• Layer the lasagna in a freezer-safe dish and wrap tightly with plastic wrap.
• Freeze uncooked.
• Thaw in the refrigerator and bake according to the recipe. It will take at least overnight to thaw in the fridge, so plan ahead! 
• Then bake as directed in the recipe instructions.

Leftovers

Store leftovers in an airtight container in the refrigerator. You can reheat lasagna either in the microwave or the oven. If reheating in the oven, keep the pan covered to prevent the lasagna from drying out.

Top Recipe Tips

• Pan Sizes: This recipe makes a lot of lasagna, usually enough for about two 2-quart casserole dishes. Feel free to use whatever size pan you wish and just layer the lasagna as usual. You can keep making pans of lasagna until you run out of ingredients. Baking times may vary depending on the pan you use.
• Halve the Recipe: If you don't need so much lasagna, feel free to halve the recipe using the buttons on the recipe card.
• Easy Freezer Portions: For easy freezing, use disposable foil pans. They come in all sorts of sizes and are the best price at the dollar stores! The mini loaf pans are the perfect size for 1-2 servings.
• Don't worry if the noodles don't reach right to the edge of the pan. They will expand a little as they cook.
• For pickier eaters, use kitchen shears to chop up the spinach a bit before mixing with the ricotta. It will blend in more with the sauce and no one will get a big bite of spinach!

FAQ

I hope you enjoy this delicious recipe for gluten-free vegetarian lasagna! It is a bit of work but the end result is so worth it!

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