Lasagna Roll Ups with Lucini Tomato Sauce

Confession: I do not love cooking dinner. I mean, I am always looking for one-pan recipes, aka something I can throw together quickly for minimal clean up. I’m also very good at avoiding making dinner all together right now because = so pregnant.BUT, this is one of my all time favorite “look like a superstar” dinners that's worth the minimal effort right now: Lasagna Roll Ups.Sure it probably doesn’t look like much, but I actually think it’s 1,000 times better than traditional lasagna. (ps. It’s also 1,000 times easier.)It’s lighter. Less pasta, no meat, more sauce, packed with greens but still topped with cheese.To make it as magical as it should be, you HAVE to use the best ingredients you can find.Behold, Lucini Marinara Sauce. (Really, you can use any of their 4 tomato sauces to make this recipe, they’re all sooooo good. Except the spicy one for me right now is no bueno with my pregnancy heartburn, lol).Guys, this sauce is as delicious as it is clean. Clean meaning = minimal (and no unrecognizable) ingredients, annnnnd there’s no sugar added and it’s organic. It’s basically your dream date in sauce form.I mean, I’m usually ALWAYS doctoring up store-bought sauces in a jar, but not this one. This one is so good I actually took a spoon to it the same way I would chocolate pudding. High praise.I’ve been prepping some freezer friendly meals before this baby girl comes and this dinner is one of them.I feel like the holidays inspire us to cook a little more and give a little more and this a fantastic recipe to prepare for someone else (like, eh hem, someone who just had a baby) and deliver unbaked so they can bake it at their convenience too.Anyway, this one is worth it. It’s messy and good and comforting and I could probably eat it every day since hello: sauce, carbs and cheese. I’d love a freezer full of roll-ups.I hope you make it and share it with loved ones this Holiday season.More to come. Love you friends. xoThis post was sponsored by Lucini Tomato Sauce. Thank you for supporting the brands that support Sweetish Co. (Remember we only align with brands we believe in and absolutely LOVE.) 

Lasagna Roll Ups

This recipe is extremely forgiving, like…. so forgiving. I actually really want to call it a “method” more than a recipe because it’s that flexible. Feel free to swap herbs, add different ingredients (like spinach or cooked sausage) to your ricotta cheese, tweak the amount of cheese you want, increase the amount of noodles to match more cheese added, add more sauce etc. etc. The world is your oyster with this one. It is really hard to mess up! (I wish every recipe (and life!) was like this! lol) I DO love this rendition of this recipe though - all these wintery herbs and addition of the kale and the red and green make it feel like the holidays. xo 

• 12 lasagna noodles (cooked just under a la dente, see notes)
• 16 ounces / 1 lb / 455g full-fat mozzarella cheese, torn or shredded (1 handful of cheese held in reserve to top)
• 1 tablespoon fresh rosemary, chopped (and some reserved for topping)
• 1-3 smallish fresh sage leaves, very finely chopped (some whole leaves reserved for topping)
• 2 tablespoons fresh thyme (leaves removed from their stems)
• 5-6 cloves fresh garlic, minced
• 1 ½ cups fresh lactino kale, ribs removed, finely chopped
• 2 ½ cups / 22.5 oz / 638g ricotta cheese (roughly) (or about one and a half 15oz containers)
• 2 eggs
• 2 cups shredded fresh parmesan cheese (divided, plus more for serving)
• 1 tablespoon olive oil (plus way more for cooking lasagna noodles)
• 1 ½ jars 25.5oz jars / 723g / 3.5 - 4 generous cups Lucini Tuscan Marinara sauce (be generous with the sauce. This is good saucy. )
• kosher salt + fresh pepper to taste
• fried sage leaves, fresh rosemary, fresh thyme and more parmesan to garnish

1. Cook your lasagna noodles in salted boiling water doused with olive oil until under a la dente. I found it easiest to cook my noodles in 3 batches - so only about 4 noddles at a time to prevent crazy sticking. It probably took me about 15 minutes total. See bakers notes for more about this.

2. Douse partially cooked noodles in a generous amount of olive oil, coating each one and roll up and set aside on a large plate. The olive oil prevents the noddles from sticking together. Let noodles sit while you prep other ingredients.

3. Preheat oven to 375° F / 190° C and grab a 9" x 13" baking dish.

4. Prepare your fresh herbs. For the thyme: remove the little leaves from the woodsy stems, you don’t need to chop these. For the rosemary: Remove the prickles from the woodsy stalks and finely chop. For the sage: Roll up each leaf like a scroll and then finely chop. If you only have bigger sage leaves, you may only want to use 1 leaf total. I find fresh sage to be quite strong. 

5. Peel and mince your fresh garlic.

6. Grate your parmesan cheese (I like to use a microplane to do this).

7. Pull apart or coarsely shred your mozzarella cheese. 

8. Wash, dry and chop kale.

9. In a large bowl, combine ricotta cheese, fresh herbs, garlic, kale, 1 cup parmesan cheese, almost all of the mozzarella cheese (remember we’re reserving a very generous handful for the top), 1 tablespoon olive oil and salt and pepper to taste. (Remember you’re free to use more herbs, cheese, kale etc. here if you want! This recipe is yours.) 

10. If the filling tastes good and needs no more seasoning, add two eggs gently folding them into the mixture.

11. Pour about generous 1 cup of sauce on the bottom of the baking dish. You want just enough to lightly coat the bottom of the pan to prevent sticking.

12. Fill each noodle with cheese mixture and roll - kinda like your making a little rolled burrito or filled crepe. Fill each noodle pretty generously.
    

13. Place each filled noodle in the pan, lining them all up until you fill the pan. (I did a double row of 6 - see images).

14. Top filled noodles with the rest of the tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese and reserved 1 cup parmesan cheese and bake for 20-25 minutes, uncovered or until cheese is melted and bubbly. 

15. While the roll ups bake, fry some whole sage leaves (5-6 at a time) in olive oil for about 3-5 seconds. Getting the oil the right temperature is a little tricky at first, but know that when it’s the right temperature, the sage leaves sizzle and fry very quickly without burning. (It may take a couple tries to get it right. I’ve found that a medium-high heat works best.) 

16. Drain sage leaves on some paper towels for a few minutes.

17. Place fried sage leaves, and mixture of other freshly chopped herbs on the baked roll ups along with more parmesan.

18. Serve while hot, with maybe more parmesan if desired, and enjoy! xo

side note: we actually had left over filling for about 4 more roll ups cause we didn’t fill them up enough here.

bakers notes: I used Trader Joes “no boil” noodles and broke the rules and boiled them for about 5-6 minutes in salted water doused with olive oil until they were soft enough to bend and roll but not totally cooked to a la dente. The pasta gets a chance to cook for about 20-25 more minutes in the oven surrounded by sauce and cheese, so I don’t want a perfectly cooked noodle going into it or else they’ll end up soggier than we’d like.

I found it most helpful to douse the partially cooked noodles in olive oil, and roll them up sitting on a plate, to prevent them from sticking to each other.

Use your best judgement on how long you should boil your lasagna noodle - remember we’re shooting for soft, and pliable but not totally cooked yet. When you pull the noodle out of the water after a few minutes of cooking time - you should be able to bend and roll it with ease, but it shouldn’t be a noddle you want to eat yet because it’s not cooked enough.