Green Lasagne With Bean Béchamel

I loved creating this twist on a lasagne for Bold Bean earlier this year. Instead of a classic white sauce, this recipe uses a bean béchamel.

Look for more dinner recipes? Check out my others here.

Serves 4-6

INGREDIENTS:

400g broccoli heads, blanched for 3 mins

400g asparagus, blanched for 3 mins

14 sheets of dried lasagna pasta, soaked in water

Handful basil leaves, torn

2 balls mozzarella

2 tbsp olive oil

For the béchamel:

40g unsalted butter, plus extra to top

2 garlic cloves, diced

½ jar of Bold Bean Co Organic White Beans with their bean stock

Generous grating nutmeg

100g parmesan, grated, plus a little extra for between the layers

130ml water

For the green sauce:

3 tbsp olive oil

1 medium onion, thinly sliced

5 garlic cloves, thinly sliced

370g baby spinach

300ml hot veg stock

2 good pinches of dried chilli flakes

Squeeze lemon juice

Salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 200°C degrees and grease a 36cm by 25cm baking dish with olive oil.

Blanch the vegetables.

For the green sauce, set a frying pan to a medium heat and add 3 tablespoons of olive oil. Add the onion and fry for 5-6 minutes to soften, followed by the garlic for another min. Then add the spinach and fry for 2 minutes. Add the hot stock and simmer everything for 2 minutes before adding to a blender with the lemon juice, dried chilli and season generously with salt and pepper. Blend to a smooth consistency and set aside.

For the bean béchamel, melt the butter in the same saucepan that you used for the green sauce. Then, add the garlic and cook for 1 min before adding in the beans, nutmeg, cheese and water. Bring to a simmer for 1 minute and use a wooden spoon to break up most of the beans into the sauce - you want to leave a few of the beans whole for texture. Check the seasoning and remove from the heat.

Spoon a few ladles of the green sauce onto the bottom of the baking dish and make a single layer of lasagne sheets. Then, add another layer of green sauce, followed by bean béchamel, scatter over one third of the broccoli, asparagus, few basil leaves torn in, torn pieces of mozzarella, black pepper and gratings of parmesan. Repeat this process until you have 3 layers of pasta. The top should be green sauce, white sauce and any remaining cheese. Dot over a few more knobs of butter.

Bake at 200C for 35 mins or until golden on top. Eat straight away.

Watch me make the recipe here!