Light Yogurt Lasagna

I’ve been making the traditional bolognese lasagna for years. It tastes great, everybody loves it. The only thing about it is that I mostly ate it with a bad conscience. I mean minced meat, noodles and bechamel sauce all in one pot.

A few weeks ago, my son and my cousin who was visiting us, wanted me to make lasagna again. I meant to cook the classical one but incidentally I found this recipe just a day or two before. I decided to give it a try and I am so glad I did. It was absolutely great, I don’t think that I will make the classical bechamel sauce for this dish again. Nobody noticed anything was different, they all said I make the best lasagna ever and I was overjoyed.

Not only that substituting the white sauce with yogurt makes the lasagna lighter, the substitution also makes cooking quicker and easier. Instead of stirring your sauce, taking care that it doesn’t get clumpy and then letting it cook for a while, you just have to stir the yogurt with some hot broth and cheese. It doesn’t get any easier.

I made things even lighter by using lean ground beef and low fat Gouda cheese.

It was really great, you have to try this.

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Light Yogurt Lasagna

Prep time:  30 mins

Cook time:  30 mins

Total time:  1 hour

Serves: 6

Ingredients

• 1 big onion
• 3-4 garlic cloves
• 2 medium carrots
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 800 g/ 28 oz lean ground beef
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• 2 cans chopped tomatoes (about 400 g/14 oz each)
• dried oregano
• paprika
• 300 g/ 1⅕ cups low fat Greek yogurt
• 200 ml/ a bit less than 1 cup hot broth
• 170 g/ 1 ¾ cups low fat cheese, grated (I used Gouda), divided
• about 12 lasagna sheets
• salt and pepper

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius/ 390 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Chop the onion and the garlic cloves finely. Grate the carrots.
3. Heat the oil in a pan and saute the onions until translucent. Add the garlic and the carrots, saute for a couple of minutes more. Add the ground beef and let it get a bit brown. Break the meat lumps with a wooden spoon while the meat is cooking. Add the tomato paste, stir well and saute for 1 more minute.
4. Add the tomatoes, oregano, paprika, salt and pepper to taste and bring everything to a boil. Simmer gently for 5 minutes.
5. In the meantime mix the yogurt and the hot broth together. Add 70 g/ ¾ cup of the grated cheese to the yogurt mixture and stir well.
6. Place some of the meat sauce in a rectangular casserole dish. Place lasagna sheets on top, add some more meat sauce, than some yogurt sauce and lasagna sheets again. Repeat the procedure. End with a layer of yogurt sauce and 100 g/ 1 cup grated cheese.
7. Bake for about 30 minutes or until the lasagna sheets are cooked through and the cheese is golden brown.
8. Serve with a green salad.

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