Lasagna is one of those favorite comforting home cooked meals that the whole family loves. However sometimes making a whole lasagna is too much food or too much work. My solution, lasagna roll ups! It’s an easy way to get the comfort of lasagna last minute and with minimal ingredients and effort.
Now in our lasagna which is my mother in law’s recipe we put cream cheese. Strange sounding I know I was skeptical at first, but it’s the BEST ingredient ever!! So as long as you have some lasagna noodles, cream cheese (I prefer Greek cream cheese because it has less cholesterol), tomato sauce or a couple tomatoes, and mozzarella cheese your set.
Additionally, I’m always about adding as much nutrition to a dish as possible. Now lasagna isn’t full of “good for you” things with all the cheese but you can add some mild greens to your cream cheese mixture to get a few additional veggies in there. With all the garden tomatoes we have I made our latest batch with some homemade tomato sauce and fresh picked spinach for a delicious garden to table dinner.
The key to the homemade tomato sauce is to peal your tomato, put 2-3 in a bowl and with your immersion blender and puree completely. Now here’s where I should have strained the seeds out but forgot, not to worry though it’ll still taste delish. Next add your sauce to a pot with browned garlic & EVOO. Cook down until sauce thickens to your liking then add your basil.
EASY CHEESY LASAGNA ROLL UP (makes 8 roll ups)
- 4 Lasagna Noodles
- 1 Clove Garlic
- 3-4 tomatoes (pealed & pureed w/ immersion blender)
- 8-10 basil leaves chopped
- Garlic salt
- Oregano
- 1/2 Cup Greek Cream Cheese
- 1/2 Cup Mozzarella Cheese Shredded
- 1/2 Cup chopped spinach, swiss chard (or any other green)
- 1 TBS. Olive Oil (EVOO)
Preheat oven to 350, boil water in large pot & cook noodles per package directions. Meanwhile make tomato sauce (or use canned organic no salt added). In a bowl add pealed tomatoes and with your immersion blender puree. If you’d like to now’s the time to strain out your seeds. In small sauce pan add olive oil and minced garlic. Cook until fragrant. Add sauce to pot and cook on med heat until thickened and slightly boiling then add chopped basil. In a bowl mix together cream cheese and your chopped greens. Cut each cooled noddle in half and add a spoon full of cream cheese mixture and some cheese. Repeat with all noodles and add more to each if necessary. Roll up and add to a glass baking dish drizzled with olive oil. Top each roll with sauce and sprinkle with more basil & mozzarella cheese (optional)
Bake @ 350 until cheese is melted about 10-15 minutes.
~ Natalie