Plan my cook day

Lasagne for the freezer, sized for your family

It’s 6pm, the kids are hungry, and tonight’s dinner is already made. You cooked the roasted veg lasagne in one big batch and froze it in containers, one dinner to each. Move a container to the fridge the night before, and that’s dinner.

Makes
8 portions
On the night
Nothing to cook
A portion
About 770 kcal
Plan my cook day

One afternoon of batch cooking, weeks of dinners.

A slice of lasagne lifted from a white baking dish

How to make it

Make it all ahead for the freezer.

Roasted veg lasagne

Make ahead and freeze

Ingredients for 8 portions

Method

Roast the veg

  1. Boil the kettle and preheat the oven to 200°C (180°C fan).
  2. Pour water from the kettle over dried porcini mushroom and leave to soak.
  3. Halve butternut squash lengthways, scoop out the seeds and cut each half into 4 wedges.
  4. Lay the wedges skin-side down on a large baking tray, rub with olive oil and season with salt, black pepper and chilli flakes.
  5. Prick aubergine all over with a fork and put on a second baking tray.
  6. Roast both trays for 45 minutes until the squash is golden and the aubergine is soft and wrinkled.
  7. Leave the veg to cool on the trays.

Ragù

  1. While the veg roast, peel and dice onions, carrot and celery stick into 1 cm pieces.
  2. Pick and finely chop the leaves from sprig of thyme and sprig of fresh rosemary for the ragù, and from sprig of fresh rosemary for the white sauce. Keep the white sauce rosemary apart.
  3. Heat olive oil in your biggest pan over a medium heat, add the diced veg and fry for 15 minutes until soft, stirring now and then.
  4. Stir in the chopped herbs for the ragù and sprig of fresh sage, fry for 2 minutes, then turn the heat up.
  5. Pour in red wine (check the label says vegetarian) and bubble for 5 minutes until reduced by half.
  6. Add chopped tomatoes, water from the kettle and drained red kidney beans, bring to the boil, then turn the heat down.
  7. Simmer uncovered for 30 minutes, stirring now and then.
  8. Halve the cooled aubergine lengthways, scoop the flesh into the ragù and throw away the skin.
  9. Simmer for 30 minutes more until thick and most of the liquid has gone.
  10. Take out the sage, then mash the ragù with a potato masher until no large lumps are left.

White sauce

  1. While the ragù simmers, peel and thinly slice garlic clove, slice chestnut mushroom 5 mm thick and finely grate parmesan.
  2. Lift the porcini out of their soaking liquid, keeping the liquid, and chop them finely.
  3. Heat olive oil in a saucepan over a medium heat and fry the garlic for 1 minute.
  4. Add the mushrooms, the white sauce rosemary, salt and black pepper and fry for 8 minutes until golden, stirring often.
  5. Add the porcini and their liquid, leaving the gritty last bit in the bowl, and bubble for 3 minutes until reduced.
  6. Turn the heat to low and stir in creme fraiche. Heat for 2 minutes.
  7. Take off the heat and stir in the parmesan.

Assemble and bake

  1. Tear the roasted squash into chunks.
  2. Set out your containers, one meal to each. Divide a quarter of the ragù, a quarter of the white sauce, a quarter of the squash and a quarter of spinach between them, in that order.
  3. Cover with lasagne sheets, using a third of fresh lasagne sheet and breaking them to fit the containers.
  4. Repeat twice more, then finish with the last of the ragù, white sauce, squash and spinach.
  5. Halve cherry tomato and toss with olive oil.
  6. Grate extra mature cheddar cheese over the top and scatter over the tomatoes.

To eat now

  1. Preheat the oven to 180°C fan.
  2. Bake for 45 minutes until golden and bubbling.
  3. Leave to stand before serving.
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Nutrition

Per portion, roasted veg lasagne
Energy
770 kcal
Fat
44.1g
Carbohydrate
63.5g
Protein
25.6g
Nutrition details
Energy
770 kcal
Fat
44.1g
of which saturates
20.3g
Carbohydrate
63.5g
of which sugars
24.7g
Fibre
15.8g
Protein
25.6g
Salt
2.98g

Estimated from ingredient data (98% of ingredients included).

How we’d cook it, not advice. We don’t check recipes for allergens, and ingredients vary by brand, so check the label on everything you use. Prepare and cook food the way the Food Standards Agency says. Allergens and food safety

Lasagne with roasted veg lasagne Roasted veg lasagne, made ahead and frozen. Roasted veglasagne
Make ahead and freeze

How it comes together

Ready for the freezer

  1. Make the roasted veg lasagne

  2. Let it cool.

    “cool any warm dishes before putting them in your freezer”, says the Food Standards Agency.

  3. Roasted veg lasagne. Put the lid on the container.

  4. Label each container with the dish and the date.

No special kit. The roasted veg lasagne works best in foil trays with lids. Any freezer-safe container does the job too.

Ready to eat

  1. The night before, move the roasted veg lasagne to the fridge.

    “the safest way to defrost food is in the fridge overnight”, says the Food Standards Agency.

  2. Roasted veg lasagne. Heat it in the oven until it’s steaming hot all the way through and golden.

    “it is important that food is cooked to steaming hot throughout, rather than warmed”, says the Food Standards Agency.

Nomstash plans the rest

  • Everything from one shop

    The food and the foil trays with lids on one shopping list, with an estimated cost before you go.

  • Sized for your family

    Say who’s eating and every container holds the right amount, growing as the children do.

  • No more UFOs

    Unidentified Frozen Objects, as the Food Standards Agency calls them. Each container says what’s inside and the day you made it.

  • A reminder the night before

    Nomstash tells you which container to move to the fridge for tomorrow’s dinner.

Plan my cook day

  • Already keep a freezer spreadsheet?

    Paste it in from Excel or Google Sheets, or choose a CSV file, and Nomstash reads it into your stash.

    Bring in my freezer list

Make it a cook day

Add two or three more dishes to the same afternoon, and one shop covers the lot.

Batch cooking: cook once, eat all month

Freezing and defrosting safely

The rest of the Food Standards Agency’s advice, in their words, is in our freezing and defrosting guide.

Sources

  1. Food Standards Agency How to chill, freeze and defrost food safely gov.uk
  2. Food Standards Agency Cooking your food gov.uk

Last checked . Each quotation on this page was read against the page it links to.

Make lasagne your first batch.

Nomstash plans the shop, sizes every container and reminds you the night before. Nomstash is in beta.

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