ZUCCHINI LASAGNA WITH GROUND BEEF

This saucy zucchini lasagna is your low carb godsend for times when you’re craving some Italian comfort food. Lasagna noodles are replaced by thin zucchini slices, and you won’t even notice the pasta’s gone. In fact, Mr. Savory Tooth and I like this version a lot better than your typical pasta based lasagna. Most of the flavor is in the sauce itself, so taking away the lasagna noodles doesn’t detract much at all.

Speaking of the sauce, that’s the best part of this lasagna: it’s a very savory and hearty meat sauce, full flavored with beef, onions, tomato sauce, oregano, and a pinch of cayenne. The sauce is roasted with layers of zucchini and mozzarella cheese, making this lasagna so richly flavorful that you’ll want more than one serving — more like two or three.

I adapted this zucchini lasagna recipe from a no-bake stovetop skillet lasagna that I made a year ago. I kept the onions, mozzarella cheese, oregano, and cayenne, but swapped out sausage for ground beef (that was a strict order from Mr. Savory Tooth, who abhors sausage) and used tomato sauce instead of crushed tomatoes. There’s no contest here — the flavors and textures in this zucchini lasagna are leagues ahead of my skillet pasta lasagna. If you haven’t tried making zucchini lasagna, I highly recommend that you give it a go.

Moisture control is key in any recipe that uses zucchini, which is a very wet vegetable that exudes plenty of liquid during cooking. To combat the moisture so that you don’t end up with a soggy lasagna, some people will salt their zucchini prior to cooking to release some liquid, or grill the sliced zucchini before baking. I don’t have the kind of patience required for either of those things, so I just make sure that my meat sauce is overly thick. As the zucchini cooks and releases liquid, that provides the moisture needed by the meat sauce to bring all of the lasagna layers together into a cohesive dish.

Ingredients

• 20 ounces zucchini (about 2 large) ends sliced off and discarded
• 1 pound extra lean ground beef
• 15 ounces can tomato sauce or puree
• 1 cup finely chopped onion (about 1 small)
• 1 1/2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
• 1/2 cup finely grated parmesan cheese
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 3 teaspoons dried oregano
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cayenne

Instructions

1. Making the meat sauce:
2. Heat a high-sided pan over medium heat until hot. Add olive oil to coat the bottom of the pan. Add onions and cook until softened, about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
3. Add ground beef to the pan, breaking it apart as it cooks. Cook until browned, about 5 minutes.

for full recipes please see : www.savorytooth.com

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