What’s better than a fast, delicious sheet pan meal? One that doubles as dinner and meal prep for the rest of the week! I highly recommend making this for dinner on Sunday or Monday night and then eating the leftovers for lunch all week. We like to make big recipes around here, so we don’t have to cook every day. This recipe is no exception. You’ll get eight servings from this recipe, each with 32 grams of protein and 7 grams of fiber to keep you full, longer.
First, you will make your ‘meat’ sauce. I used vegetarian crumbles from Gardein, but you can use whatever ground meat or meat alternative you wish. Then, you will make your cheese filling. Putting these steps together should only take 5 – 10 minutes, longer if you need to cook your ground meat. (Perk of the veggie crumbles, they just need to be heated up!) Then, we layer. The photo below helps show just how easy and quick this comes together. Just 1/3 of the sauce, 7 no-cook noodles, all of the cheese filling, 1/3 of the sauce, 1/2 the mozzarella cheese, 7 more noodles, the rest of the sauce, and the other 1/2 of the mozzarella cheese. The benefits of making a thinner sheet pan lasagna are that the prep is faster and the cook time is much shorter. And, we all need more time and less time spent cooking.
To speed the cooking time even more, we want to cover the sheet pan with foil. Try to dome the center of the foil slightly to keep it from sticking to the cheese. Alternatively, you can spray some oil on the foil. If you want a golden look to the cheese, remove the foil for the last 5-10 minutes of cooking.
When I created this recipe, the goal was for it to be fast, delicious, and balanced in terms of nutrition. I like to pack veggies into the meal, plus make sure it has adequate protein, and of course, it has to taste good. Between the cottage cheese, ricotta, mozzarella, and veggie crumbles, this recipe packs a protein punch. Then, the spinach addition to the cheese sauce takes care of our veggie needs. (However, feel free to add a side salad or steamed broccoli if you want.) Then, the noodles are our carbohydrate. However, depending on your activity level, you may need to add some additional carbs on the side. Think: fruit, garlic bread, baguette, etc.
Once you’ve gotten your fill at dinner, pop a serving into your storage containers for lunches the rest of the week! Just that easy, just that quick. Enjoy!
Vegetarian Sheet Pan Lasagna
Ingredients
- 1 lb frozen veggie crumbles I used Gardein Ground Be'f
- 2 25 oz jars marinara sauce
- 1 cup low-fat ricotta cheese
- 1 cup low-fat cottage cheese
- ½ cup parmesan cheese
- 2 eggs
- 5 oz frozen spinach thawed & chopped
- 1 tsp Italian seasoning
- 14 sheets no cook lasagna noodles
- 2 cups mozzarella shredded
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425℉.
- Grab a standard sheet pan with sides.
- If using frozen vegetarian crumbles, pour those into a sauce pan with your two containers of sauce and bring to a simmer. We are just warming up those crumbles. If you are using meat, cook ground meat in a pan first then add sauce until simmering.
- In a medium sized bowl combine ricotta, cottage, and parmesan cheese. Add in eggs, spinach, and Italian seasoning. Note: it’s okay if the spinach is still fairly wet. This helps the noodles cook well. Mix until combined.
- Pour ⅓ of the sauce mixture onto your sheet pan. Spread as evenly as you can. Top with 7 no cook lasagna noodles. There will be some space in between and that is okay.
- Top with all the cottage cheese mixture as evenly as you can. Then, top that with ⅓ of the sauce mixture. Sprinkle 1 cup of mozzarella cheese on top. Then, add the other 7 no cook noodles, the rest of the sauce, and the rest of the cheese. Your order should be: sauce, noodles, cottage cheese mixture, sauce, mozzarella, noodles, sauce, mozzarella.
- Cover loosely with foil. Make sure it’s tight around the edges but don’t pull so tight on top that all the cheese sticks to the foil.
- Bake for 25 minutes. Remove foil. Bake for another 10 minutes or until bubbly. Enjoy!