Mushroom Lasagna with White Sauce

If you’re looking to make a meatless dish mushroom lasagna with white sauce is one of those hearty and comforting dishes that will hit the spot. You can use a variety of your favorite mushrooms, slice them up and saute them in some butter and olive oil with fresh herbs. For the noodles, you can use store bought lasagna noodles or venture out and make your own…which by the way is not hard at all. Wrap it all up with a nice bechamel sauce add some Parmesan cheese to it and put everything together with a few other ingredients.

Do you know what the difference is between a bechamel sauce and a mornay sauce? Its the same base but a mornay also has cheese in it, usually Gruyere and Parmesan. I didn’t know this just a few years ago. I was so excited to learn that small, what some would call unimportant, tidbit 🙂 .

For this batch of mushroom lasagna, I actually did make my lasagna noodles. To make your own batch of basic egg pasta, just mix 4 large eggs, 1/2 cup of water, 3 1/2 cups of sifted all purpose flour, 1/2 teaspoon salt well and then either use a dough hook on your electric mixer and process for a few minutes or use your hands to knead and knead and bring it together to a point where it’s not sticking to your hands and it is smooth like a baby’s behind 🙂 . Then you let it rest for 20 minutes, covered with a towel before separating it into 4 equal parts and rolling each out into a long sheet, by hand or by your favorite pasta making concoction! Let them dry on a towel with flour sifted on it.

If you end up with extra sheets of noodles then you can cut them up into fettuccine noodles. Also, homemade noodles are so fresh that you do not have to boil them before using them.

You just need:

• 1 pound of baby bella mushrooms, cleaned and sliced
• 2 large portabella mushroom caps, cleaned and chopped
• 3 tablespoons of unsalted butter
• 4 tablespoons of olive oil
• 6 sprigs of fresh thyme
• 6 large fresh basil leaves, chopped (plus more for garnish)
• 3 tablespoons fresh Italian leaf parsley, chopped
• 4 large garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 1/2 teaspoon dried Italian seasoning (plus more for layering)
• 8 packaged lasagna noodles, or 4 fresh lasagna sheets
• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1/2 cup of all purpose flour
• 4 cups milk (1% or greater), at room temperature
• 1 cup vegetable (or any broth of your choice)
• salt, pepper and ground nutmeg to taste
• 16 oz container ricotta cheese
• 2 cups shredded mozzarella
• 1 cup shredded monterey jack cheese
• 1 cup grated Parmesan cheese, divided

Steps:

1. Melt 3 tablespoons of butter with olive oil in pot and add mushrooms, thyme (I throw it in with the stems and then fish them out after the leaves have fallen off of them), basil, parsley, garlic.
2. Cook mushrooms until soft and most of the liquid has evaporated, then throw in the Italian seasoning, salt and pepper to taste. Remove to bowl and set aside.
3. In the meantime, boil a pot a water and cook your lasagna noodles to package instructions (unless you have made fresh ones then you do not need to boil). Once cooked set aside to cool.
4. To make bechamel, add 4 tablespoons of butter to pot and melt (I just used the same pot the mushrooms were sauteed in, don’t need to clean it, has yummy mushroom juices on it 🙂 .
5. Once butter has melted add flour and stir to combine well, this now is called a roux. Let cook for a minute to cook out the raw flour taste.
6. On low heat, slowly add the 4 cups of milk into the roux as you whisk quickly, you don’t want lumps to form. If you haven’t done this before it may help if you had a second person to pour as you hold the pot with one hand and whisk with the other, because you don’t want the sauce to form lumps 🙂 .
7. When all the milk is incorporated and sauce is free of lumps, set heat to medium low and whisk occasionally until it comes to a simmer then add the cup of broth and stir well until it is incorporated. Bring back to a simmer and add about 1/4 teaspoon of grated nutmeg (optional) and pepper.
8. Turn off heat and add 1/2 cup of the grated Parmesan and combine, set aside.
9. To assemble, using a 9 by 13 inch baking dish (or pan), add about 1/2-3/4 cup of sauce to the bottom dish to cover and lay 2 lasagna noodles (or one fresh sheet that you have made and cut to fit your pan). Top with 1/3 of the mushrooms and dollop 1/3 of the ricotta cheese throughout the dish. Sprinkle with some Italian seasoning and pepper.
10. Mix mozzarella and monterey jack cheeses and sprinkle 1/4 on top of mushroom and ricotta layer then add some grated Parmesan cheese
11. Do the same layering two more times: sauce, lasagna noodles, mushrooms and ricotta with seasonings, shredded cheeses and Parmesan then repeat. Then add some sauce, the last lasagna noodles/sheet and top with the remaining bechamel sauce then the rest of the shredded cheese and grated Parmesan. Sprinkle the top with some black pepper and Italian seasoning.
12. Cover with a large piece of foil, do not let foil touch the top layer of the lasagna. If your pan doesn’t have a lot of room between the foil and the top layer then crease the foil so it doesn’t touch the top of the cheese, otherwise it will stick to the foil.
13. Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 30 minutes, remove foil and bake 7 more minutes. Remove and let set for 10 minutes.
14. Serve with a nice green salad and some ricotta cheese bread.

Kali Orexi!