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Eat Your Heart Out Popeye – Kale Lasagna Beats Spinach

We have a steady stream of kale coming from the garden these days, and while I make my favorite raw kale salad almost every week with it, there is a need for a new recipe.  Enter Kale Lasagna from the January/ February issue of Vegetarian Times magazine.

Along with a slew of other kale recipes, this one caught my eye.  Anything that calls for no-boil noodles increases the odds of actually making the dish, so I gathered the ingredients and went to work:

Freshly harvested kale, garlic, tomato puree (or in this case organic crushed tomatoes), organic ricotta cheese, chevre, no-boil lasagna noodles and red pepper flakes (not pictured) make up the basis of the meal.

kaleingredients

The Recipe: Kale Lasagna Diavolo
(copied and pasted from Food.com)

  • 1 teaspoon olive oil (plus more for oiling pan)
  • 8 ounces kale, stems removed
  • 1 (15 ounce) package fat-free ricotta cheese (I used full fat ricotta – let’s not kid ourselves)
  • 4 ounces goat cheese, softened
  • 2 garlic cloves, minced
  • 2 cups tomato puree (I used crushed tomatoes)
  • 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
  • 6 lasagna noodles, cooked and drained (or 6 no-cook noodles)
  • 1/4 cup
  • Parmesan cheese, grated (You could use more – it wouldn’t hurt)

Directions:

Prep Time: 20 minsTotal Time: 1 hr
  • Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Coat 8-inch square baking pan with oil.
  • Cook kale in large pot of boiling salted water
    for 2 minutes. Drain and rinse under cold water until cool enough to
    handle. Thoroughly wring out kale, then chop. Season with salt and
    pepper, if desired. Set aside.
  • Mash together ricotta and goat cheese in bowl and set aside.
  • Heat 1 teaspoons oil in small saucepan over
    medium-low heat. Add garlic and cook 15 seconds, or until fragrant.
    Add tomato puree and red pepper flakes; simmer 5 minutes, or until
    thickened.
  • Spread 1/4 cup sauce in prepared baking pan.
    Place 2 lasagna noodles on top of sauce. Top with half cheese mixture,
    half of kale, and 1/3 cup sauce. Top with two more noodles, remaining
    cheese, and remaining kale. Top with remaining lasagna noodles and
    cover with remaining sauce. Sprinkle with Parmesan and bake for 40
    minutes (or until cheese has melted and lasagna is bubbly.

It took very little time to cook up the ingredients and set them aside for assembling.  Here’s what mine looked like after putting it together:

kalelasagna

When it comes out of the oven, it’s a thing of beauty.  Feast your eyes:

finishedkalelasagna

I usually find spinach lasagna to be dark in flavor and somewhat dry. This kale lasagna surpassed my expectations and even tasted great as a leftover.  I drizzled the leftovers with a little olive oil and heated it up. Serve with a slice of rosemary olive oil bread and a side salad.  Oh yea!

This Post Has 5 Comments

  1. Shannon M.

    This lasagna looks great ! 🙂 yum!!

    Kale chips are being talked about in comments so chiming in to share my incredible recipe that makes people say “best kale chips ever”

    I like to toss with the olive oil and then spread the leaves out on the cookie sheet and then sprinkle sea salt, garlic powder, squeeze lemon over all the leaves too and then nutritional yeast – oh my – so good in the end – I hope some fellow gardens nerds try it and ENJOY 🙂

    1. Christy

      Sounds delicious! We’ll give that a try. Thanks for sharing, Shannon.

  2. Christy Wilhelmi

    O’ the kale chips! You’ve reminded me that I need to make some ASAP.  Thanks for sharing!

  3. Chris Stevens

    I’ve been making Kale chips with my Tuscan Kale. Super easy; cut the stem out of the kale, wash and dry the leaves. Toss with a little olive oil, season with salt/pepper or ?? (my fav is garam masala) then put on a cookie sheet and bake at 250 for 25 minutes or until crisp. Fantastic!!

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