Bacon Wrapped Lasagna

I love Bacon Wrapped Lasagna. Who’s with me? To tell the truth, I love most food. Lasagna has to be up there though. And what savory dish isn’t improved by adding bacon? So here’s my low-fat, veggie-heavy, but-still-tastes-indulgent recipe #1.

The key ingredients.  The second time I made this, I used fresh lasagne sheets, and it tasted better.

Trim all the fat off 150g short-cut bacon. This is actually an Aldi product called “Budget Bacon” where you get a kilo for five bucks. It’s a lot less than a kilo after you trim all the fat off, but I think it’s still a good deal.  Dice up that bacon like you mean it.

Trim all the fat off 150g short-cut bacon. This is actually an Aldi product called “Budget Bacon” where you get a kilo for five bucks. It’s a lot less than a kilo after you trim all the fat off, but I think it’s still a good deal.  Dice up that bacon like you mean it.

Spray your pan lightly with oil of some sort – currently I have avocado oil because it was on sale at Aldi (Americans, Aldi is like a ghetto version of Trader Joe’s. Not as good, but they have a lot of cheaper alternatives compared to your conventional grocery store. Pretty much everything about me is a little ghetto though – even my countertops, and my Christmas stocking when I was a little girl) – and then saute the onions, garlic, and bacon, and capsicum if you like doing that. I did.

Then throw in the rest of your veggies, and saute them for a few minutes. If I had mushrooms, I would wait until the rest of the veggies are softened before putting them in last. Add salt and pepper!

It’s looking good at this point. You could even stop here and just have this for dinner. Or put some of this in an omelet. Or serve it on steamed brown rice, or quinoa, or mix it with couscous. Or, keep reading.

Then add a can of diced tomatoes. Of course fresh diced tomatoes would be better, if you had a whole heap of them. But you would need at least a kilo, which would cost at least $3, and you would have to scrape the seeds out, otherwise it would be too wet. A can of diced tomatoes costs 85c, and all of the work is done. How do they do that? Child labor?

Then add a 250g jar of pasta sauce. Stir it all up and let it simmer for maybe 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, mix up some extra light ricotta cheese and some light cottage cheese with 2 eggs and lots of salt and pepper. Or just pepper, if you’re into the whole low-sodium thing. I love salt. But I also sweat a lot, so I think it balances out. I used 250g ricotta (about a cup) and 125g ( about half a cup) cottage cheese. But varying these amounts won’t make a ton of difference.  Next time I think I would use a cup of each. It makes it super cheesy and creamy, without that heavy fatty feeling (and calorie count) of regular lasagne.

Time to start construction.  Spread some of the red sauce in the bottom of your lasagne pan.

Then lay your lasagne sheets in there, and spread some ricotta mixture on top. Sprinkle with grated light mozzarella cheese. I measured out 100g of grated light mozzarella for the entire recipe, and then split that into three parts for the three layers, so this is about 33g

Then whack some more red sauce on top of the mozzarella, and do two more layers like this, ending with red sauce. (Have you caught sight of my really cool coloured bowls? My sister Aimee gave them to me and they make me want to cook more.)

Oh! The Grana Padano. Yes, you can use regular old Parmesan instead. Grana Padano is way better though. Grate about 50g of it, and sprinkle it all over the top

Like this. Then bake for about 30 minutes at 180C.