Vegan Gluten Free Lasagna (Overnight)

Simply amazing, guilt-free vegan gluten free lasagna. This lasagna tastes like the real thing without any meat or cheese. The only difference is you won’t have the typical post-lasagna gut bomb. You’ll want to trick your non-vegan friends with this one.

This is the easy way to make lasagna. By assembling everything in a baking dish and placing it in the refrigerator overnight, you don’t have to boil the lasagna noodles. And that saves a lot of time and hassle.

To make it even easier, use two 26 oz jars of marinara sauce instead of making the sauce from scratch. That saves a TON of time! Sometimes, I let the sauce cook down too much and we run short so I make up the difference with a jar of marinara sauce. It’s also good to heat up some marinara on the stove to ladle over the top of the lasagna when you serve it (as shown in the pictures).

We used rice noodles in this recipe to make it gluten free, but you can use whole-wheat lasagna noodles if you like. It works the same either way.

We also used Beyond Meat Beefy Crumbles as the ground beef substitute. It adds some good flavor and texture without saturated fat. However, it does contain oil, so you can skip it or try using cooked and mashed brown lentils instead. If you skip the cheese and the Beefy Crumbles, this is an oil-free recipe.

We made another version of this recipe called our Easy Vegan Lasagna using lentils and tofu ricotta. It tastes just as good but it’s a lot cheaper (tofu is much less expensive than 2 cups of cashews) and completely oil-free.

Prepare the Vegan Cashew Cream 2 to 4 hours before you’re ready to assemble the lasagna. You’ll use this to make the Cashew Ricotta Cheese.

This vegan gluten free lasagna recipe was inspired by an old family friend, Helen Breitenstein, who passed away back in 1993. She was a tiny Irish woman with a huge personality. She made this lasagna the typical way with conventional meat and cheese, but I’ve veganized it for your ethical eating pleasure. I’ve included her “hints” below the recipe.

If you make this recipe, please let us know your thoughts in the comments below. And please share with your friends to help spread the word about healthy plant based eating.

Overnight Lasagna

Votes: 2 Rating: 4.5 You: Rate this recipe!

Print Recipe

It's not only a vegan gluten free lasagna, but it's easy to make. Prepare it the day before and refrigerate overnight. Absolutely delicious!

• CourseMain Dish
• CuisineGluten Free, Italian, Kid Friendly, Soy Free, Vegan
• MealDinner

Servings	Prep Time
8 servings	45 minutes

Cook Time

60 minutes

Servings Prep Time 8 servings 45 minutes

Cook Time 60 minutes

Overnight Lasagna Votes: 2 Rating: 4.5 You: Rate this recipe! Print Recipe It's not only a vegan gluten free lasagna, but it's easy to make. Prepare it the day before and refrigerate overnight. Absolutely delicious! CourseMain Dish CuisineGluten Free, Italian, Kid Friendly, Soy Free, Vegan MealDinner Servings Prep Time 8 servings 45 minutes Cook Time 60 minutes Servings Prep Time 8 servings 45 minutes Cook Time 60 minutes

Ingredients

Sauce Ingredients (Or Use 2 Jars Marinara)

• 1/4 cup vegetable broth
• 1/2 cup shallots chopped (2 shallots)
• 1 tbsp garlic cloves minced (4 cloves)
• 1 box chopped tomatoes roughly 26oz
• 1 box strained tomatoes roughly 26oz
• 2 tbsp tomato paste buy in a tube so you can save it
• 1 tsp fennel seeds coarsely smashed
• 1 tsp oregano
• 1 tsp salt (optional)
• 1/2 tsp black pepper
• 1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
• 1 tbsp sugar reduce by half if desired

"Meat" Mixture Ingredients (Or Use Cooked Mashed Brown Lentils)

• 2 tbsp vegetable broth
• 10 oz Beyond Meat Beefy Crumble 1 pkg
• 1/2 tsp onion powder
• 1/4 tsp salt (optional)

Cashew "Ricotta" Ingredients (Or Use Tofu)

• 2 cups cashew cream prepared ahead of time
• 1 tbsp oregano dried
• 1 tbsp basil dried
• 1/4 tsp salt (optional)

Lasagna Ingredients

• 14 pieces lasagna noodles 1 pkg, gluten free rice noodles (or whole wheat noodles)
• 1/2 tsp oregano dried
• 1/2 tsp garlic salt (optional)
• vegan mozzarella cheese for topping (optional)
• vegan parmesan cheese for topping (optional)

Servings: servings

Instructions

Sauce Ingredient Prep

1. Prepare the Cashew Cream ahead of time.
2. Chop the shallots and mince the garlic. Keep separate.
3. On a cutting board, smash the fennel seeds with a hammer or heavy pan. This is also a good use for your old meat clever if you have one. Don't use a grinder.
4. Open the crushed and strained tomatoes.
5. Add the tomato paste and spices to a small bowl and set aside.

Let's Cook the Sauce

1. Heat 1/4 cup vegetable broth in a large saucepan over medium heat.
2. Add the shallots and cook until soft and semi-translucent. About 3 minutes.
3. Add the garlic to the shallots. Sauté for 1 minute.
4. Add the crushed and strained tomatoes, tomato paste and spices to the pan. Stir well.
5. Simmer covered for 10 minutes or until heated.

Lasagna Ingredient Prep

1. Heat 2 tbsp vegetable broth in a medium skillet over medium heat.
2. Add the beefy crumbles to the skillet along with 1/4 tsp salt and onion powder. Stir to mix. Heat until warmed through.
3. Make the Cashew "Ricotta" by adding 1/2 tsp of salt, 1 tbsp dried basil and 1 tbsp dried oregano to the 2 cups cashew cream and stir to mix well.

Lasagna Assembly

1. Put 1/4 of the spaghetti sauce on the bottom of a non-greased 9"x13" baking dish.

   
2. Add 1 layer of lasagna noodles over the sauce in the baking dish.

   
3. Spread 1/2 of the cashew cream (about 1 cup) evenly over the lasagna noodles.

   
4. Spread 1/2 of the beefy crumbles evenly over the cashew cream.

   
5. Cover with 1/4 of the sauce and repeat by adding another layer of noodles, cashew cream, beefy crumbles and 1/4 of the sauce.
6. Add another layer of noodles and the remaining sauce. If you're low on sauce, you can use a jar of marinara. You want to use plenty of sauce.
7. Cover the baking dish and place in the refrigerator overnight.

Let's Cook the Lasagna (the next day)

1. Remove the lasagna from the refrigerator 30 minutes before cooking to allow the baking dish to warm to room temperature.
2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
3. Bake the lasagna covered with aluminum foil for 45 minutes.

   
4. Remove foil and sprinkle with a little garlic salt (optional) and oregano.

   
5. Optionally sprinkle with vegan shredded mozzarella and vegan parmesan. To reduce the fat from oil, skip the cheese and/or use some nutritional yeast.
6. Bake uncovered for another 15 minutes or until it bubbles in the center and the cheese is melted.
7. Let stand 15 minutes before serving.
8. Optionally heat 2 cups of extra sauce or marinara on the stove and ladle some over the lasagna when you serve it. That really makes this look like restaurant lasagna!

   

Recipe Notes

Serving size is 1 piece of lasagna about 3" x 4 1/2".

Helen's Hints:

• Buy an additional small jar of sauce for the table, just in case of dryness.
• Really think an 8 oz package of noodles is enough. I had some left over.
• I also took it out of the refrigerator about 1/2 hour before baking. Mainly, I wanted to let the dish warm to room temp. before putting into hot oven.
• Hope you like it -------- I don't !!!

Helen hated Italian food. Lucky for us, she didn't hate cooking it or sharing this delicious recipe with my mom, which I've converted from high-cholesterol to no-cholesterol vegan gluten free lasagna.