Zucchini-Noodle Lasagna

Zucchini was finally on sale at the store today. This made me very happy! Zucchini is an awesome substitute for noodles in a lot of dishes, and while we often use our spiral slicer and make spaghetti noodles with it, zucchini is equally as delicious when used as lasagna noodles.

This recipe is an adaptation of a version that I read about here. But I adjusted it to make it dairy free, 5 ingredients, and a bit easier.

This dinner here was insanely delicious, and we couldn't believe how tasty the zucchini noodles were in here! Cooking them first with the egg/almond flour mixture made a huge difference and make the zucchini doughy and tender.

For a comforting dinner, or an even tastier next day leftovers for lunch----if you have any left! We've even frozen half the recipe and it reheated deliciously. So stock up your freezer, stalk up your fridge!

Ingredients

1) 2 pounds of ground meat (we used beef, but sausage would be delicious too, or ground turkey, etc)

2) 6 eggs

3) 1.5-2 cups of almond flour (I always recommend Honeyville brand)

4) 2 cans of tomato sauce (14oz) -- or you can make your own. I just always have tomato sauce on hand, and find it a lot easier! Get a good, organic one if you can. We buys ours in bulk at Costco.

5) About 6 large zucchinis (3-4 pounds)

(Extra: You could add cheese if you do dairy, and you can also add in some Italian seasoning and garlic to the canned tomato sauce to flavor it more if you want)

Instructions

1) Preheat oven to 400 degrees

2) This will be easier with a mandolin, but if you don't have one, you can use a sharp nice. Cut off the ends of your zucchini, and cut the zucchini into 1/4 inch thick slices. Try to make them as even as possible.

Sliced zucchini

3) Get out two pie pans or bowls to put your breading materials in. This will make it a lot easier. Add your eggs to one dish and beat until smooth. Add your almond flour to the other pan. (Note: If you want to add extra spices to your almond flour, here's when to do it. You could add garlic powder, onion powder, cayenne powder, italian seasonings, salt/pepper, etc. This will add some extra flavor to the dish, but is not necessary. I didn't, but you could!)

4) Dredge your zucchini strips into the almond flour, trying to get a light, even dusting on both sides. Then dip in the eggs, and place onto a lined cookie sheet. Continue with the rest of your zucchini. (This took 2 cookie sheets for me).

5) Place in the oven, and cook 8-10 minutes until brown on one side. Then flip over your zucchini and cook an additional 5-10 minutes until brown on both sides.

Ready to brown

Browned on both sides

6) While your zucchini is cooking, start browning your meat over medium-high heat. Once brown, you can drain off some of the fat if you'd like, but I just kept mine and it flavored the tomato sauce more. It's up to you, and depends on your tastes and how much fat your ground meat releases.

Ground beef plus tomato sauce

7) Assembly time!

8) In a 9x13 pan, or two 8x8 pans, add a small amount of your tomato sauce to coat the bottom.

9) Add the remaining tomato sauce to your pan with the meat, and stir to incorporate.

10) Add a layer of zucchini to your pan, then top with a layer of your meat/tomato sauce.

Layer 1

11) Continue alternating zucchini layers and meat layers. I was only able to do two layers of each.

Mid-layer 2

12) You can add cheese here to the top if you'd like.

Ready to bake!

13) Place foil over your pan, and cook at 400 for 45-55 minutes, until nice and bubbly. If you added cheese, take the foil off 10 minutes before it's done cooking to brown it up.

ENJOY!

Delicious!