Tag Archives: Lasagna; Mushrooms; Squash; Zucchini; Italian; Dinner

Zucchini – Mushroom – Sausage Lasagna

22 Wednesday Aug 2012

Posted by in Recipes

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We have two versions of homemade spaghetti sauce – mine, which was lovingly passed down from my mom and includes veggies and sausage and Mr. E’s, which was lovingly passed down from his mom and is a marinara style sauce with ginormous meatballs.  Both are delicious and when we make either we make a TON and freeze the leftovers. 

While scrounging through our freezer looking for something to make for dinner, I found not 1 but 2 bags of my mom’s veggie spaghetti sauce.  As I shouted to Mr. E, “we have SAUCE – 2 BAGS”, he shouted back “SWEET” and we both looked at each other and started fist pumping to our lasagna song!  Okay, we didn’t really fist pump and there is no lasagna song, but we did smile when we said “lasagna” and there should be a lasagna song – it’s good enough to have its own song. LOL 🙂

While in the freezer I also found 2 chicken Italian sausages – 1 hot and 1 mild.  A search of the fridge yielded a pint of mushrooms and squash in danger of going bad. 

Using my mandolin slicer (which is so much fun), I thinly sliced the yellow squash and zucchini.  I used an egg slicer to slice the mushrooms.

I crumbled the sausage in a skillet and sautéed until cooked through and removed from pan.  In the same pan I cooked the squash in a little bit of olive oil, removed and then sautéed the mushrooms in the same pan with a bit of butter added, until lightly browned.

I began layering sauce, cooked lasagna noodles, sausage, mushrooms, squash, ricotta and a bit of mozzarella cheese in a baking dish. 

The last layer consisted of noodles, sauce and cheese.  Cover and bake and then….. YUMMY!  I’m sorry this picture didn’t come out very well – I was trying to show the layers :(.  We were having it for dinner the next night and then I forgot to take a picture of it on the plate.

Zucchini, Mushroom, Sausage Lasagna

12 lasagna noodles, cooked
2 squashes – sliced, I used a yellow and a zucchini
2 links of Italian sausage
1 pint of mushrooms, sliced
4-5 cups spaghetti sauce, we like it saucy
1 cup of ricotta
2 – 2 ½ cups shredded mozzarella
Salt & pepper
 
Preheat oven to 375° In a big pan, over medium heat, crumble the sausage and sauté until cooked through; remove from pan.  In the same pan add the sliced squash and add a pinch of salt and pepper (depending on how big your pan is you may need to do this part in batches so that the slices can get browned).  Since I used chicken sausages, there was not a lot of grease and I needed to add a bit of olive oil to the pan.  Remove from pan.  Then sauté the mushrooms in the same pan with a bit of butter until lightly browned.
 
In a 9×13 pan, ladle a bit of sauce in the bottom just to coat and then begin layering everything, starting with noodles, sausage, mushrooms, squash, dollops of ricotta, a sprinkle of cheese, a little sauce and then another layer of noodles.  The last layer will be noodles, a good amount of sauce (as mentioned earlier, we like it saucy :)) and mozzarella cheese. 
 
Cover and bake for 35 – 45 minutes, until the sauce is bubbling around the edges of the dish.  Remove foil and turn on the broiler and cook for about 5 minutes or so until the cheese on top gets bubbly and a little browned.  It’ll go fast so keep your eye on it so it doesn’t burn.  Let cool for a few minutes and enjoy with garlic bread and a nice salad.