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This vegan lasagna recipe will become your new favorite: guaranteed. It’s full of flavor and a winner with everyone!
Are you a lasagna lover? Us too. Lately we wondered: is cheese essential to that classic Italian baked pasta? After lots of testing…turns out, no! Vegan lasagna is a thing, and it’s extremely tasty. In fact, we agreed: this is our favorite lasagna recipe, period. You can make this huge pan on a budget, so it’s a healthy dinner recipe that’s affordable to all! It pleases everyone, even meat eaters, and is great for entertaining or a casual family dinner. Ready to get started?
What makes it the best vegan lasagna recipe?
No matter how you eat, this vegan lasagna will be a hit. We promise! We had a few friends over for dinner to try it, and here’s what they had to say: “Wow! This is so good. I can’t stop eating it. I need another piece!” Somehow we stumbled upon a truly delicious way to make a dairy free lasagna. Even better, it’s easy to make and made with all whole foods. No cheese or meat substitutes here! Here’s what makes this vegan lasagna recipe special:
- Really good pasta sauce. We used an organic tomato basil pasta sauce that has a great, robust flavor. You’ll want to use the best sauce you can find.
- Mushroom, cashews, & spinach. For a meaty filling, chop mushrooms and cashews, and sauté with spinach.
- Hummus! Our secret ingredient is hummus! It stands in for the typical creamy ricotta cheese filling and infuses huge flavor.
- “Parmesan” Cashews blended with garlic powder make for a Parmesan-like topping.
Watch how to make vegan lasagna
No boil noodles are required!
This vegan lasagna is made with no boil lasagna noodles. No boil noodles are required here: no substitutions please! No boil noodles are different from standard noodles: they’re made especially so you don’t have to cook them before baking lasagna. This makes prep time shorter. Even better, some people even argue that no boil noodles have the superior texture for a lasagna. So wins all around!
More liquid is required in a lasagna when making it with no boil noodles. This recipe is specially formulated to cook the no boil noodles while baking. Bottom line: Don’t try this vegan recipe with standard noodles or it could end up too watery.
Another noodle note: If you have a large 9 x 13” aluminum pan with square sides, you’ll need 13 ounces noodles. A 9 x 13” glass baking dish with rounded sides only needs 10 ounces of pasta noodles! Because baking dish shapes and noodle shapes can vary, make sure you have enough pasta based on the baking dish you plan to use.
Use a high-quality pasta sauce
The only other “must” for this recipe: find a high-quality pasta sauce! We made this vegan lasagna recipe especially to use pasta sauce because: let’s face it! Lasagna takes a while to make, and a jarred sauce truly speeds up prep time.
There are lots of high-quality pasta sauces these days, even organic. Find your favorite and use it for this lasagna. You could of course substitute your favorite homemade marinara sauce. For this recipe, we used Simply Nature organic tomato & basil pasta sauce from ALDI. It had fantastic flavor and really made this vegan lasagna shine.
Are there any time savers?
Lasagna is notoriously time-intensive. We’ve optimized this vegan lasagna recipe so that it’s as easy to make as possible. If you’re looking for ways to save time when baking it the day of, here are a few options:
- Use a food processor (optional). A food processor is not required for this recipe! We used ours because it makes chopping the mushrooms and making the “Parmesan” topping very fast. If you don’t have one, you can use a regular large knife for chopping.
- Make the mushroom filling and Parmesan in advance. The main prep steps here are the mushroom filling and the dairy free “Parmesan” topping. You can make and cook the filling in advance: just store it refrigerated until making the lasagna. Make and store the Parmesan topping at room temperature.
Sides to serve with vegan lasagna
Ready to make this vegan lasagna into a meal? The best side to serve with lasagna is the good old standard: a green salad! Here are a few we’d recommend:
- Apple Salad Easy to whip up, with tangy apples covered in a zingy balsamic vinaigrette. Make it while the lasagna bakes! (Omit the cheese crumbles for vegan.)
- BEST Kale Salad Features a tangy lemon vinaigrette that makes kale taste like a dream! (Omit the Parmesan cheese.)
- Favorite Chopped Salad or Perfect Italian Salad Our favorites, with crisp veggies and tangy Italian dressing. (Omit the Parmesan cheese.)
- Sauteed Spinach or Sauteed Broccoli add a splash of green.
- Easy Garlic Toast It’s garlicky, crunchy and vegan.
This vegan lasagna recipe is…
Vegetarian, vegan, plant based, and dairy free. For gluten free, use gluten free no boil lasagna noodles.
Favorite Vegan Lasagna (Easy & Dairy Free!)
- Prep Time: 35 minutes
- Cook Time: 50 minutes
- Total Time: 1 hour 25 minutes
- Yield: 12 1x
Description
This vegan lasagna recipe will become your new favorite: guaranteed. It’s full of flavor and a winner with everyone!
Ingredients
- 8 ounces baby bella mushrooms
- 1 cup roasted cashews, divided
- ½ teaspoon dried rosemary
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 5 ounces baby spinach
- ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice + 1 teaspoon lemon zest (1/2 lemon)
- ⅛ teaspoon garlic powder
- 2 25-ounce jars tomato basil pasta sauce or marinara sauce
- 2 8-ounce cans tomato sauce
- 10 to 13 ounces no boil lasagna noodles* (see note!)
- 8-ounce container hummus (or garlic hummus)
- Dried oregano, for sprinkling
- Fresh ground black pepper
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375°F.
- Make the spinach mushroom filling: Pull out the stems of mushrooms with your fingers. In a food processor or with a large knife, roughly chop the mushrooms, ½ cup of the cashews and the rosemary. Add 2 tablespoons olive oil to a skillet and bring to medium heat. Sauté mushrooms and cashews for 3 minutes until soft but still hold their shape. Add the spinach (saving out a few leaves for the garnish) and sauté until wilted, 1 to 2 minutes. Remove from the heat and stir in ¼ teaspoon of the kosher salt, a few grinds of pepper, and the lemon juice. Let stand until assembling.
- Make the dairy free Parmesan topping: in a food processor or blender, blend ½ cup cashews with the garlic powder and lemon zest until it’s ground into about the texture of a shaker can of grated Parmesan. (Alternatively, chop as finely as possible with a knife.)
- Mix the sauce: In a large bowl, mix together the pasta sauce and tomato sauce.
- Layer the lasagna: In a 9 x 13” baking dish, spread tomato sauce on the bottom of the pan. Then top with 1 layer of noodles (our pan held 3 noodles longwise and ¾ noodle widthwise), breaking noodles as necessary**. Spread with half of the hummus, half of the mushrooms and a tomato sauce layer. Repeat again: 1 layer of noodles, half of the hummus, half of the greens and tomato sauce. Finally, top with noodles, then tomato sauce again. Sprinkle the entire top with the “Parmesan” and dried oregano.
- Bake: Cover the pan with aluminum foil and bake for 40 minutes, then 10 minutes uncovered. Let stand for 15 minutes before serving (this allows the lasagna to set). If you’d like, finely chop spinach leaves to use as a garnish (for looks only!). Cut into pieces and enjoy.
Notes
*Important: You must use no-boil lasagna noodles for this recipe! Do not substitute standard noodles. The amount of sauce is formulated for no boil noodles, which need more liquid than standard lasagna noodles.
**If you have a large 9 x 13” aluminum pan with square sides, you’ll need 13 ounces noodles. A 9 x 13” glass baking dish with rounded sides only needs 10 ounces of pasta noodles! Baking dish shapes and noodle shapes can vary, so make sure you have enough pasta based on your baking dish.
- Category: Main Dish
- Method: Baked
- Cuisine: Italian
Do you have any brand names for the no boil noodles -organic please since nonorganic grains all contain glyphosate thanks to the use of round up to desiccate the crops just prior to harvest. Surprised to see you mention aluminum pan – especially with the acidic tomato sauce. Maybe look for videos with Dr Chris Exley formerly with Keel University who did decades of research on aluminum and how bio active it is. We knew in the early 70’s that it caused dementia and his research showed that it was aluminum, not plaques that cause it. They did not call him Mr Aluminum without good reason.
I’m sorry, I don’t have a specific recommendation for you.
I thought someone made a comment that this made good leftovers..
Could I make and bake ahead of time and reheat next day for a dinner party? I’m anxious about how it will turn out that way. Anyone try that?
We had guests visit for dinner, one of whom is a vegan, so I thought I would try your lasagna recipe. Everyone liked it so much more than the usual meat-filled version. Why consume all that that cholesterol, when you can make a delicious healthy lasagna like this without it? Going forward, this will be my go-to lasagna recipe. And since I need to eat gluten-free, I made one modification, which was to use the Barilla Gluten-Free Oven Ready Lasagna Noodles. They GF noodles worked great with this recipe. No one knew the difference!
I’m so glad you enjoyed it!
This was a seriously good recipe. I loved how all the flavors combined and I forgot it was vegan! The only thing is my noodles came out kind of gummy, but I think I may not be used to the texture because I usually use boil noodles. Overall delicious though, and made me happy to be fasting!
Can this be assembled the day before being baked and served?