I feel like I’m the only food blogger I know who hasn’t posted about how much I love my Instant Pot yet (I love it). I also feel bad that this website is called Vegan Hot Dish and I haven’t really posted anything close to hot dish yet. As such, lets make some lasagna using an Instant Pot! You don’t have to have an Instant Pot for this recipe, but it will make planning and prep time a lot faster.

Sweet Potato Lasagna

I looked up how to make vegan ricotta and used the oven instructions on the back of the lasagna noodles but otherwise came up with this one on my own. Lasagna is kind of like pizza, right? Hard to make it taste terrible. And sweet potatoes always make things taste better.

Ingredients:

1 box oven ready lasagna noodles (at least 9 full-size noodles)

1/2-1 cup beefless ground (I used Gardein but I’m sure most brands would work great here), still frozen is fine

1 bag spinach, rough shredded (6-10 oz)

1 32 oz jar tomato sauce (get the good garlicky kind)

2 medium or 1 large sweet potato(es), skinned and cut once or twice lengthwise

1/2-1 cup basil leaves, washed and stemmed

4 cloves garlic (ideally freshly roasted with olive oil for about 10 min at 400F)

1/2 teaspoon salt (or to taste)

1 and 1/2 cups cashews (soaked overnight if you don’t have an Instant Pot)

1/4 cup lemon juice

1-2 teaspoons olive oil

Fresh cracked black pepper to taste

Water as needed

Directions:

Start by making the ricotta cheeze. Pour the cashews into the Instant Pot with enough water to cover them and process on manual/high for 1 minute. Vent and open (immediately is fine). Drain the water and pour the cashews into a blender or food processor (I use my Magic Bullet) and add lemon juice and pulse, adding around 1/4 cup of water as needed to create a ricotta consistency (should be a little lumpy so don’t overdo it). Scrape out of the blender into a separate bowl if you need your blender for the next step.

Next, steam the sweet potatoes either in a pot on the stove or in the Instant Pot on manual/high for 25 minutes. This would also be the time to roast your garlic (see above). Once the sweet potatoes are cooked through, drain and transfer them to a large blender. Add the jar of tomato sauce, your roasted garlic (whole peeled is fine), the basil, and salt. Blend, adding around 1/2-1 cup water as needed to keep the sauce loose enough to pour and coat everything for the next step.

Now it’s time to assemble! Preheat your oven to 375F. Pour enough sauce in a 9″ x 13″ pan to cover the bottom. Coat three noodles generously in a third of the ricotta and lay them in a single layer, ricotta-side up, in the pan. Sprinkle half of the spinach over the noodles and half of the beefless ground over the spinach. Pour another cup or so of the sauce over the spinach to mostly coat it. Repeat the whole process again, coating the noodles and covering them with spinach, ground, and sauce. Coat the third layer of noodles in ricotta and lay them in the pan, pour the rest of the sauce over them, then sprinkle or spray the top with olive oil to keep the noodles from drying out in the oven. Sprinkle pepper on top as desired. The sauce mixture should come to at least half of the height of the noodle layers. If it doesn’t, press down gently on the layers a bit and/or add a little more water down the sides of the pan.

Cover the pan with foil and bake for 50 minutes, then remove the foil and bake for another 15 or so (sauce should be very bubbly around the edges and noodles should be tender to the touch in the center). Remove the pan from the oven and allow it to cool for at least 5 minutes before serving.

Tadaaa! Lasagna. I will admit not my prettiest recipe, but definitely one of my favorites. The first night I made it, my husband made me record what I did on his phone so I didn’t forget how I made it because he liked it so much.

Enjoy! Let me know below what hot dish recipes you have veganized or would like to veganize.