Primal Lasagna
Cooking Steps
Begin browning your meat in a large saucepan while you dice your onion and carrot. Add to the meat and simmer slowly. Once it’s almost all brown, add your garlic and spices and let cook for about 15 minutes on low heat, stirring often. Chop your mushrooms up to bite sized pieces and add to the pan. Cook with the lid on for about 5 minutes then take the lid off and simmer for about 10 minutes or so. This cooks off a lot of the juices that are released from the mushroom. We’re not using oven ready noodles here folks so we want to eliminate as much water from the sauce as we can.
Open your crushed tomatoes and drain as much of the water as possible. Add it to the meat and simmer for a while, then add the sauce. It’s best to let this stuff simmer on low for a long while, occasionally taking the lid off the pan to release water.
Lasagna Layers:
You’re going to use zucchini for the ‘noodles’. If are able to, cut your zucchini noodles just as you begin browning the meat. If they are allowed to dry for a few hours, they release less water into the final dish. I cut mine about 1/8 inch thick. Too thin and they don’t hold the dish together, too thick and it doesn’t jive. Find your zucchini sweet spot and go with it.
Once the meat sauce is ready, ladle out about 1 cup or so into the bottom of your baking dish. Place a layer of zucchini on top of that, then take half of what’s left of the meat sauce and spoon over the ‘noodles’. Here is where you can add a light sprinkling of pastured cheese, as well as a few fresh basil leaves ripped into pieces. Add another layer of zucchini and the rest of the meat sauce.
Top with a layer of finely sliced whole tomato and a generous amount of ripped basil leaves. Sprinkle your pastured cheese on top. Bake in the oven at 375 for about an hour (gotta cook those zucchini’s). If your meat sauce is piping hot when you layer, it may take only 45 minutes. Either way, turn the oven to broil for the last 10-15 min of cooking and then let it set on the counter for about 20 minutes before serving.
Serves 5
45
This is a Dairy Recipe
Ingredients
- 2 lbs grass fed ground beef
- 1 27 oz can of crushed tomatoes
- 1 27 oz can of diced tomatoes
- 8 cremini mushrooms
- 1 onion, 2 carrots
- 5 cloves garlic
- dried basil, oregano, marjoram to taste
- 1 TBSP paprika, 1/2 tsp organic turmeric
- 2-3 large Zucchini for noodles, 5-6 leaves fresh basil
- 1.5-2 whole tomatoes, sliced thinly, 1/4 cup finely grated pasture raised hard cheese (optional)
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4 Responses to “Primal Lasagna”
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Sounds delish. I make this without the mushrooms, and use sliced eggplant instead of the zucchini!
Spent 5.5 hours making this and making this RIGHT: slowly simmered out most water before baking. Replaced zucchini with yellow squash, and, holy cow, this is mm-mm good.
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Yummy! I omitted carrots because I forgot to buy some. For measurements on the oregano, basil, and marjoram, I used a heaping tsp each. Definitely throw extra fresh basil in between the layers too. Oh, and you may want to add a little salt to taste. If you haven’t tried them, the Muir Glen fire roaster organic tomatoes have a great flavor.
This does take a while to make. Don’t skimp on simmer time on the sauce. After I added the tomatoes I simmered for about an hour.