Turkey Spinach Lasagna

Total Time: 1 hr 30 mins Preparation Time: 30 mins Cook Time: 1 hr

Ingredients

• Servings: 8
• 1 cooking spray
• 6 ounces ground turkey
• 1 medium onion, diced
• 2 teaspoons minced garlic cloves
• 10 ounces frozen chopped spinach, thawed, drained, and squeezed dry
• 26 ounces fat free spaghetti sauce
• 1 1/2 cups water
• 3 cups part-skim mozzarella cheese, shredded and divided
• 2 cups part-skim ricotta cheese
• 1/2 cup grated pecorino romano cheese
• 1/2 cup egg
• 1 teaspoon chopped fresh basil
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper, freshly ground
• 8 ounces dry lasagna noodles

Recipe

• 1 preheat oven to 350 degrees.
• 2 in a bowl, combine the 2 cups mozzarella, 2 cups ricotta, basil, pepper, and egg whites (you can use egg substitute or a whole egg if you prefer -- i used 100% all egg whites from a carton) and set aside.
• 3 spray non-stick skillet (i use cast iron) with oil and saute minced garlic until brown.
• 4 add diced onion and saute until browned or translucent.
• 5 add ground turkey and saute until browned, being careful to separate the meat into crumbled bits or they will clump into large chunks.
• 6 add spinach and saute briefly, stirring to combine all ingredients.
• 7 add spaghetti sauce and water and stir. (i used the 1/2 cup of water i squeezed out of the spinach as part of the 1-1/2 cups, and i filled the empty jar of whole food foods organic fat-free pasta sauce with the other cup of water to get every last bit of sauce out.)
• 8 bring to a boil, cover, reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes. (cover to retain the moisture which you will need for the unbaked noodles later.).
• 9 in a 13 x 9 nonstick baking pan, spread about 1 cup of the turkey spinach mixture over the bottom, being sure to cover all of the bottom to prevent the noddles from sticking. use a little more sauce if necessary.
• 10 spread 3 lasagna noodles over the mixture, leaving a little space between each noodle for it to expand during cooking. (if you don't, you will wind up having little "hills" along the seams, like mine.).
• 11 top noodles with 1-1/2 cups turkey spinach mixture, covering all of the dry noodles, and then top the sauce with half of the cheese mixture.
• 12 cover with noodles, and repeat until ending with a turkey sauce layer. (i wound up with 3 layers of noodles, and some extra cheese sauce, which i dotted around the edges.).
• 13 cover with foil and cook in oven for 50 minutes. (if you use no-boil, oven-ready lasagna noodles, you can probably cut out at least 15 minutes of baking time.).
• 14 take out, uncover, and sprinkle last cup of mozzarella over top.
• 15 bake for another 10 minutes (or longer if you like your cheese brown and crunchy -- in which case, feel free to shorten the covered baking time correspondingly).
• 16 remove from oven and let rest 10 minutes before serving.