Lightened Up Lasagna or Guilt Free Pasta!

I love pasta! Cheesy, gooey, slurpy goodness all rolled into one. Sigh, but when I think pasta I also think about the size of my future backside. In fact, in going through all the recipes on here there isn’t a single pasta recipe… until now. I had to create a new category of Pasta just for this!

I really outdid myself on this one and upped my creativity level quite a few notches. I was able to put together a lasagna that is cheesy, gooey and slurpy but still is contest prep (AKA diet) friendly! As I ate this, I may or may not have quietly shed a tear of joy. The sauce is homemade but before you freak out, it only took about 30 minutes to make it.

During that 30 minutes, 20 of it is simmering to allow you to do whatever else you want to do in the meantime. Plus you only use half the sauce for the lasagna, so you get leftover sauce to freeze for later. You could even squeeze in a workout while simmering. Ha, would you call that simmering your fat off while you simmer your pasta sauce? 😉

The recipe makes 6 servings and I ate one for dinner with steamed veggies on the side. The Kid however sucked down 3 servings at dinner so I’d call that a success. The hardest part was not eating the entire thing in one sitting. Leftovers are in the fridge for lunch today.

Lightened Up Lasagna

• 1 oz prosciutto ham
• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• 2 1/2 cups sliced or diced onions
• 2 tsp minced garlic
• 28 oz can of diced tomatoes with juice
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/4 – 1/2 tsp crushed red pepper
• 8 Barilla oven ready lasagna noodles
• 1/4 cup water
• 1/2 cup shredded dairy free mozzarella cheese

Heat a large pan over medium heat and tear the prosciutto into bite sized pieces as you add them to the pan. Saute until the pieces are slightly crispy and browned. Add the olive oil to the pan and stir slightly to coat the pan. Add the garlic and onions.

Saute the garlic and onions, stirring frequently for about 5 minutes to cook the onion through. Add the tomatoes, water, and crushed red pepper and bring to a boil. Lower the heat a bit and simmer the sauce for about 20 minutes until it starts to thicken. Stir occasionally while it’s simmering. Remove from heat and set aside.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray an 8×8 baking dish with non-stick spray. Spread 1/3 cup of sauce around the bottom and top with 2 lasagna noodles. The noodles expand when baked so don’t worry that they don’t touch the sides of the dish. Repeat the 1/3 cup sauce and 2 noodle layers so you have 4 layers total. Top with 2/3 cup sauce.

In case you lost count, you will use 2 cups sauce total and 8 lasagna noodles Pour 1/4 cup of water gently in one corner. This is to add a bit more liquid to cook the noodles while baking. Sprinkle evenly with 1/2 cup cheese. I used dairy free mozzarella due to The Kid’s dairy allergy but you can obviously use real cheese.

Cover the dish with tin foil and bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes. Remove from the oven and let it sit for about 10 – 15 minutes to cool off. Slice into 6 slices and serve. Serves 6 people at 159 calories per serving if you use the dairy free cheese.

As I said above, the sauce recipe actually makes 4 cups and you only need half for this recipe. I put the rest of it in the freezer for either another batch of lasagna or to top pasta later for The Kid. It doesn’t get much better than that.

Now I need to figure out how to lighten up other pasta recipes! Mac and cheese maybe? Squeeee!