Hearts of Palm Vegan Lasagna

This vegan lasagna is a great way to get your veggies all at once - forget five-a-day, it’s five-a-meal! One surprising ingredient that takes this dish to the next level is hearts of palm. If you're wondering, What the heck are hearts of palm? They are a tender, nutrient-rich vegetable harvested from the inner core of certain palm trees.

The wonderful thing about this low-carb option is that it’s a great way to get the hearty feeling of eating a carb-heaving meal while also avoiding actual carbs. Plus, hearts of palm lasagna sheets add a unique flavor and texture that makes this dish a must-try!

If you wanted to boost this meal a little, we’d recommend making your own sauce and adding some of your favorite types of vegan cheese to it. Whether that’s cheddar, parmesan, or anything else under the sun, we’re sure it will be great!

Whatever cheese you do end up using in this situation, be sure to save a little to sprinkle over the top of the dish. This is a great way to get a melty, crispy top to your dishes, which is something everyone in the world adores!

Method

1. The first thing to do in this recipe is to make your white sauce. If you’re using a jarred sauce, then you can skip this step, but if you’re making your own then be sure to do it.
1. Add two tablespoons of vegan butter and all-purpose flour to a pan, and then add 350ml of plant-based milk. We’d suggest oat milk, as it has a very neutral flavor, but the choice is yours. If you’d like the sauce to be cheesy, add a few teaspoons of nutritional yeast here.
2. After preparing your sauce, prepare the veggies that you’ll be using. We were deliberately non-specific in the ingredients list, as we believe that this is the kind of recipe that works best when you’re vague - simply grabbing whatever you have on hand. For a hard and fast rule, though, we might suggest using bell peppers, courgettes (or zucchinis, depending upon what you call them), and red onions. Dice them into medium-small chunks, and add them to a pan with the barest amount of neutral oil. Saute them until they’re a little blackened and crispy at the edges, but still holding together well.
3. Now that the ingredients are all made, we can focus on the assembly. Start by adding a dash of olive oil to the base of a lasagna dish, and then top that with Natural Heaven lasagna sheets until the base is covered. If you’re new to cooking with this ingredient and wondering, what are hearts of palm? The are a fantastic gluten-free and low-carb pasta alternative. 

   Add a layer of the sauteed vegetables on top of that, followed by the sauce. After the sauce, add a small sprinkling of the herbs from the recipes, and start the layering process again - noodles, veggies, herbs. After you’ve run out of ingredients, bake the lasagna in a preheated oven at 400˚F.

4. Once the lasagna is well browned on top, which should take around twenty minutes, take it out of the oven and serve it up. To make the meal stretch a little further, you could serve this meal with some herby olives, halloumi, or any of your favorite low-carb sides.

   Hearts of palm truly make this recipe stand out, giving you a delicious, nutrient-packed alternative to traditional lasagna sheets!