Can you freeze roasted veg lasagne?
Yes, before its final cook. Freeze it in portions, one to each container.
How to freeze and defrost it, with the Food Standards Agency’s advice at each step.
The recipe
One batch makes 8 portions.
Ingredients for 8 portions
Method
Roast the veg
- Boil the kettle and preheat the oven to 200°C (180°C fan).
- Pour water from the kettle over dried porcini mushroom and leave to soak.
- Halve butternut squash lengthways, scoop out the seeds and cut each half into 4 wedges.
- Lay the wedges skin-side down on a large baking tray, rub with olive oil and season with salt, black pepper and chilli flakes.
- Prick aubergine all over with a fork and put on a second baking tray.
- Roast both trays for 45 minutes until the squash is golden and the aubergine is soft and wrinkled.
- Leave the veg to cool on the trays.
Ragù
- While the veg roast, peel and dice onions, carrot and celery stick into 1 cm pieces.
- 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.
- 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.
- Stir in the chopped herbs for the ragù and sprig of fresh sage, fry for 2 minutes, then turn the heat up.
- Pour in red wine (check the label says vegetarian) and bubble for 5 minutes until reduced by half.
- Add chopped tomatoes, water from the kettle and drained red kidney beans, bring to the boil, then turn the heat down.
- Simmer uncovered for 30 minutes, stirring now and then.
- Halve the cooled aubergine lengthways, scoop the flesh into the ragù and throw away the skin.
- Simmer for 30 minutes more until thick and most of the liquid has gone.
- Take out the sage, then mash the ragù with a potato masher until no large lumps are left.
White sauce
- While the ragù simmers, peel and thinly slice garlic clove, slice chestnut mushroom 5 mm thick and finely grate parmesan.
- Lift the porcini out of their soaking liquid, keeping the liquid, and chop them finely.
- Heat olive oil in a saucepan over a medium heat and fry the garlic for 1 minute.
- Add the mushrooms, the white sauce rosemary, salt and black pepper and fry for 8 minutes until golden, stirring often.
- Add the porcini and their liquid, leaving the gritty last bit in the bowl, and bubble for 3 minutes until reduced.
- Turn the heat to low and stir in creme fraiche. Heat for 2 minutes.
- Take off the heat and stir in the parmesan.
Assemble and bake
- Tear the roasted squash into chunks.
- 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.
- Cover with lasagne sheets, using a third of fresh lasagne sheet and breaking them to fit the containers.
- Repeat twice more, then finish with the last of the ragù, white sauce, squash and spinach.
- Halve cherry tomato and toss with olive oil.
- Grate extra mature cheddar cheese over the top and scatter over the tomatoes.
To eat now
- Preheat the oven to 180°C fan.
- Bake for 45 minutes until golden and bubbling.
- Leave to stand before serving.
How to freeze
-
cool any warm dishes before putting them in your freezer
, says the Food Standards Agency. - Put the lid on the container.
How to defrost
-
the safest way to defrost food is in the fridge overnight
, says the Food Standards Agency. - Take the lid off.
- 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.
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
Nutrition
Per portion- 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).
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Used in
No special kit
- Works best in foil trays with lids Any freezer-safe container does the job too.
- Everything from one shop Batch cook it with Nomstash and the foil trays with lids go on the same shopping list as the food.
Cook what you already cook
-
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Paste it in from Excel or Google Sheets, or choose a CSV file, and Nomstash reads it into your stash.
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Freezing and defrosting safely
The Food Standards Agency’s advice, in their words.
Label everything you freeze.
label food you freeze so you don’t end up with Unidentified Frozen Objects (UFOs)
The rest of the Food Standards Agency’s advice, in their words, is in our freezing and defrosting guide.
Sources
- Food Standards Agency How to chill, freeze and defrost food safely gov.uk
- Food Standards Agency Cooking your food gov.uk
Last checked . Each quotation on this page was read against the page it links to.