I love lasagna. You do too. We especially love those noodles. We just don’t want to eat them anymore. They make us feel bloated, they make us grow fat, and they just generally clog up the works.
So, because I love to make your journey to health easier, and your mouths happy en route, here’s a fantastic KETO / LCHF / LowCarb version for you.
You’ll feel normal! You’ll feel healthy! You won’t gain fat! You’ll feel awesome!
And, your mouth will thank you forever.
Lasagna
Author: Carrie Brown | Prep time: 10 mins | Cook time: 40 mins | Total time: 50 mins | Serves: 8
What You Need
- 2 TBSP coconut oil or avocado oil
- 2 medium eggplants (aubergines), peeled and sliced lengthwise into twelve 1/2” thick slices
- Ground black pepper
- 2 lb / 900g ground beef
- 1 x 18 fl oz. (large) jar tomato basil sauce (no sugar added)
- 1 tsp konjac flour / glucomannan powder
- 1 lb / 450g cottage cheese
- 12 oz / 335g shredded mozzarella
- ½ cup Parmesan, finely grated
What You Do
- Brush eggplant slices with melted coconut oil, sprinkle with pepper and place on baking sheets.
- Bake for 20 minutes at 400F, turning over after 10 minutes.
- Brown the beef, add tomato basil sauce and simmer uncovered for 20 minutes.
- While stirring rapidly, sprinkle konjac flour / glucomannan powder over the sauce. Stir well until sauce has thickened.
- Spread ½ cup meat sauce on bottom of oven proof lasagna dish.
- Place 6 slices of eggplant to cover bottom of dish.
- Spread ½ of the meat sauce over the eggplant.
- Spread ½ of the cottage cheese over the meat.
- Spread ½ of the mozzarella over the cottage cheese.
- Place 6 slices of eggplant to cover cheese layer.
- Spread remaining meat sauce over the eggplant.
- Spread remaining cottage cheese over the meat.
- Spread remaining mozzarella over the cottage cheese.
- Evenly sprinkle Parmesan cheese over the top.
- Bake at 375F for 20 minutes, turning after 10 minutes, until top is golden and bubbling.
Top Recipe Tips
- You can turn the fat content up or down by choosing the ground beef and cottage cheese that best suits your needs. Use 80/20 ground beef and full-fat cottage cheese for most fat, and 95/5 ground beef and fat-free cottage cheese for least fat (or any combination thereof).
- Use a regular vegetable peeler to easily peel your eggplant (aubergine).
- Check out the Ingredients Guide for information on ingredients.
- Where Are The Macros and Nutritional Info?
Helpful Cooking and Recipe Links
- Come laugh and learn with us over at The Kitchen Podcast
- Come hang out in The Keto Kitchen Facebook Group
- For lots more great recipes check out our scrumptious cookbooks!
Podcast Episodes
Cowgirl RaeI have done something similar with zucchini and thick sliced large tomatoes.
Love lasagna. Husband and I were discussing having stroganoff in the future? Any consideration on that from you?
carrieStronganoff has joined the list, but I warn you…that list is *really* long now!
MicThis lasagna is HEAVENLY! The whole family LOVESSSSSS it!
carrieLOVE this, Mic! Thanks for swinging by :-)))
NancyI made this lasagna for dinner last night. It was the most soul satisfying, yummy, scrumptious meal. My husband had no clue there weren’t noodles in it until I told him.
This morning at breakfast I gave him a fried egg with avocado. He looked at it and said, “Oh, I woke up in the night and thought about having lasagna for breakfast.”
I must be a slow poke cook though. It took me an hour and a half to prep and cook everything.
carrieJust a fabulous comment to wake up to this morning, Nancy – THANK YOU! It will always take longer to amke when you are doing a new recipe. Once you have it down I am sure it will go a lot quicker! PS. Tell your husband I love eating SANE Lasagna for breakfast :-)
CourtneyThis was my first lasagna attempt and it was delicious. My family even liked it although it didn’t have noodles. I didn’t think it was too difficult, either. Question, there are lots of choices of coconut oil. Is one ‘saner’ than another?
carrieCourtney – the cheapest! ;-) All pure (nothing else than coconut) coconut oil is good. If you’re in the US Trader Joe’s is cheapest, so it’s what I use :-) SO glad that you loved it and found it easy to make!!
Char GustWhat is the purpose of the xanthan gum?
carrieHi Char – it is a thickener, since we don’t use starches like flour or cornstarch to do that.
SuzanneIs there an alternative to using coconut oil such as olive oil. I want to cook the eggplant lasagne but I seem to be having trouble finding this.
Ps love the very berry rice pudding
Suzanne
carrieHi Suzanne – where are you located? We do not recommend oils other than coconut, olive or butter. We usually only use olive for cold uses (such as dressings) because heating it makes it less stable and changes the health benefits of the oil. I recommend using either butter or ghee until you can find coconut oil. Hope that helps! Thanks for the rice pudding love!
SuzanneThanks for your reply. I will check again as did send my husband to look for it. I will use butter or margarine? then until I find coconut oil. Thanks again
Suzanne
carrieNOOOOOOOOO margarine! I haven’t had any other Australians saying they cannot find coconut oil – maybe someone from Oz can chime in and help you locate?
CarolineHi there :) Not sure when all these comments were written, and I’m well-aware I’m probably a bit late to the party! But… I’m in Victoria, Australia, and I got the BEST coconut oil in a jar at Coles. Cost about $5 which was a lot better than I was expecting :) Yay! Thanks Carrie for all these amazing recipes — I’m so glad I’ve found you and how to get back to being SANE :))
carrieThanks for all the recipe love, Caroline! So happy you are here :-)
SuzannePs located in Australia
evelynCarrie I made this again today and actually made it for company this time! Made a big salad to accompany it. Everyone was totally impressed. We don’t have xanthan gum here in Greece so I just let the meatsauce boil down a bit and thicken on its own. DELICIOUS and a total hit. By the way…
One question…At the beginning of your instructions you say spread 1/2 meat on bottom of lasgna dish then state to place eggplant on bottom and 1/2 of meatsauce on top. So the eggplant should actually go on the bottom? Or 1/3 meatsauce on bottom and other 2/3 on top? I usually just make it starting with the eggplant on the bottom thinking that first sentence was a typo error.
Thanks so so so much for contributing all of the great recipes!!!!
carrieHi Evelyn! SO glad you are loving this, and your guests too :-) The instructions say spread 1/2 a CUP on the bottom…THEN you put the eggplant. Then you divide the meat sauce in half. Make sense? The 1/2 cup is just to stop the eggplant from sticking to the dish and stop the possibility of it drying out. Hope that helps!
EvelynYes!!! Sorry! It makes total sense! Feel so stupid now!!! :-)
JoanneI have an all new respect for you since reading your blog and website Carrie Brown. this was the best lasagna I’ve ever tasted and soooo deliciously cheesy! You are a genius! Was made even better for me by the fact that my man added some yummy veg to the meat sauce that he prepared last night. Beet soup next as I’ve made some chicken stock and have some beetroot in the fridge! Jo from Aberdeen
carrieHurrah for SANE Lasagna!!! THANK YOU for your lovely words, Jo from Aberdeen!!!
TanyaHi…. we don’t get cottage cheese where I live… is there an alternative that could be used?
carrieTanya – ricotta would work – get low-fat or non-fat if you can.
TanyaThank you Carrie… will have a go tomorrow :-)
SierraI have made this twice. The first time I followed the recipe and it was pretty good. The second time we switched it up a bit and now its a keeper for our kitchen! The second time we left out the Xanthan gum (made a runnier lazagna but we didn’t really like the flavor of Xanthan) and we left out the cottage cheese. Instead I mixed together ricotta cheese and raw spinach (a half pound of it!). Soooo good and it added more veggies. Thank you Mrs. Brown. We love your ideas!!!!
carrieGreat switch up, Sierra! Love it! You can try using garbanzo bean flour instead of the xanthan as a thickener.
EmmaAfter spending the last few days in the company of your & Jonathan’s podcasts, pretty much back-to-back because I just wanted to hear more (I’ve laughed & laughed!), I’m about to make this lasagna as my first SANE meal ;) I’ve got the strawberry porridge in the fridge ready for tomorrow but I’m baulking (‘scuse the pun!) at the idea of veg for brekkie in general so I’m wondering if I can just bung some spinach in the beef towards the end, and if there are other veg I could hide in the meat sauce or cottage / ricotta cheese sauce? I’m also a bit confused about what ‘squash’ are from your perspective – for me there seems to be a difference between the mini round green squash & pale yellow long squash (watery, not too sweet) and the darker orange squash like pumpkin & butternut (seem sweeter & ‘starchy-er’)?! Maybe it’s a UK / South African thing but I looooove butternut but have been scared off it by the paleo / low carb crowd … Help?!
carrieHi Emma! Bung away with that spinach in the meat :-) Squash covers an entire spectrum of stuff. When I say yellow squash I mean a yellow courgette / zucchini. The others all go by different names, but come under the general umbrella of “squashes”. Everything in the US is complicated – it wouldn’t be fun otherwise ;-)
EmmaThanks for the explanation on the yellow squash! For clarification, when you and Jonathan say ‘squash’ on your podcasts do you specifically mean courgette / marrow, or all squash, including butternut, pumpkin etc? Just trying to work out if my delight in butternut and pumpkin being SANE is actually misplaced, and they’re not?! Kitchen smells yummy already, this is going to be totally fab lasagna!
carrieEmma – we mean all squash :-) Enjoy!
EmmaYay! Squash is on! And this lasagna is amazing – I got 4 large handfuls of fresh spinach and two grated carrots in the meat, no hassle. My tip – if you add veggies, cook the meat sauce a bit longer so it doesn’t go watery in the oven. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Carrie ;)
carrieHurrah for lasagna, Emma!!
Dave CandageHi Carrie,
I just made your lasagna. I think I meddled it up. It was pretty soupy and more like cheeseburger pie. It tasted ok, but not very lasagna-y.
I’ll be trying other things as time goes on. I posted a couple of photos on Facebook about it.
http://www.facebook.com/dave.candage
Dave
carrieDave – sorry this didn’t work out for you. No sure what may have happened as I’ve only got rave reviews thus far. Maybe it was the brand of tomato sauce you used? Did you follow the recipe and ingredients as listed, or did you make any changes? When I made this is was super rich adn lasagna-y. I’d be interested to work out why you got such a different result. Thanks for sharing!
NancyHey Carrie and Dave,
I had runnier lasagna the second time I made it (although still FANTASTIC!) I attributed it to the fact I make my own quickie tomato sauce (using a recipe from Cooks Illustrated.) I added a half teaspoon more of the xanthum gum when I made this recipe the third time and it turned out perfect.
carrieYay for extra xanthan, Nancy!!
ChristineIs eggplant considered a sane food? It is 80+% carbohydrate. Does the fiber content make it sane? Thanks!
carrieHi Christine – eggplant is good. We don’t worry about all carbs, we worry about starchy carbs and sweet carbs. Hope that helps!
Bill HowardPHENOMINAL Carrie!! Cannot get enough of this!! Thank you!
carrieTHANKS, Bill!!
Suzie priceI made this last night – my husband said, “This tastes like real food!” Yea. It was yummy. I am soooooo melas to have found you and JB. My love and I had a few tense moments over some of the paleo recipes I was trying – he just didn’t like most of what I was making – ever since I stated doing your recipes, they ALL taste great, are easy to make, they ar eSANE and best of all NO tension at dinner. Yea carrie!! Thank you….
carrieSuzie – your note made me SOOOOO happy!!!! Thank you for all the recipe love :-)
MelCan I use tinned tomatoes for the sauce instead of a jar? I am in England
carrieHi Mel – yes! Make sure that you used unsweetened tomatoes and drain the juice off first. Then mash up the tomatoes and you’ll be good to go. Hope that helps!
HelenMy first SANE recipe and turned out superbly. Even more delicious than ‘regular’ lasagne :) Can’t wait to try more now! Thanks Carrie!
carrieHurrah for Helen!!! So happy to have you join our merry litle gang!
HeatherI’m not a great fan of aubergine (eggplant) so I am going to use flattened out “leaves” of leek instead. As a leek lover this should appeal to you :) Off for an afternoon in the kitchen …. lasagne, muffins and cookies to start with.
And I am addicted to your cinnamon raisin rice pud. Always have some in the fridge for when my sweet tooth kicks in. Going to make your lemon curd now too
carrieLeek “leaves” Heather – LOVE IT!!!!! What a brilliantly busy SANE cooking day you had!!
Sane/Paleo Lasagne - Run Mum[…] Well I came across this SANE / Paleo recipe from Carrie Brown over at Marmalade and Mileposts. I found out about Carrie Brown from a podcast that I listen too called The Smarter Science of Slim. Carrie is also a Chef. So she turns everyday recipes into Saner / healthier alternatives. One of those recipes happens to have been good old Lasagne. You can find the recipe here. […]
JerryI see you using xanthan gum, in this recipe. I’m not sure why. When you make regular lasagna, gum is never used. I did make your recipe without the gum and it came out great. If you want a thicker sauce, add some tomato paste to the sauce. Maybe the use of the gum is a cultural nuance, as I see it in several of your recipes.
When I need a thickening agent, such as in a dressing made without oil, I use almond flour. Great site however, best I’ve ever seen, and I bought the book.
JerelThis tasted okay, but I think I either sliced the eggplant too thin or overcooked it or put too much oil (way more than 2 T) or all three! I don’t love the flavor of coconut oil everywhere so I used olive oil, but the eggplant turned out like mush. When the lasagna came out, my wife described it as “slimy”. If you end up with about 12 slices of eggplant, stretching 2 T of oil across 24 surfaces seems like there’s barely a few flecks of oil on each piece. I feel I utterly failed at this recipe. It was very disappointing after all the work to build it! I’m sad!
carrieJerel – so sad to hear this did not turn out well for you – especially since it’s a reader favorite. Try using avocado oil instead of coconut if your coconut oil gives you flavor – it is better than olive oil and is tasteless. It’s a long time since I made it but I think you may have sliced the eggplant too thin – I don’t remember there being that many slices. Be very careful when you measure the xanthan gum because too much can give a slightly slimy feel.
ShannonCarrie, I was wondering if you could use a zucchini or squash instead of the eggplant? I’ve only had eggplant a couple times and I haven’t been a huge fan, but I’m willing to try it again :)
carrieShannon – yes absolutely you can use zucchini or squash instead, although it tends to be a lot “wetter” than eggplant.
WrenHow many ounces in the large jar of tomato paste? If you don’t gave tomato basil paste, can you use regular tomato paste and add the basil? I’ve got fresh basil in the garden.
carrieYes, Wren – You can use regular tomato and add basil.
MendiThis recipe has been a huge hit with my husband, a picky eater!!! I am so glad, because I love it too. Thank you for creating and sharing! Do you have a rule of thumb when to use xanthan gum, when to use konjac/glucomannan, and when to use guar gum for SANE thickener? I’m looking to make more of my standard recipes that except for the thickener would otherwise be SANE, for example, egg drop soup.
carrieHi Mendi – the best thickener is konjac flour and that is my go-to if I only need to thicken something. Guar gum I use when I need to emulsify something and xanthan gum when I need structure. For egg drop soup I would use a combination of konjac and guar – one to thicken and one to emulsify. I hope that helps!
MendiThat does help. Thanks for the cooking education and for everything else you do!
Lauri Nan GibsonHi there, I’ve made this recipe before and love it, but the link isn’t working anymore. Does anyone have the actual recipe for this?
B PhelpsO.M.G. I have always hated eggplant in any way shape or form. I considered trying with zucchini, but then thought what the heck, and used eggplant. I am really happy I did! It is delicious! None of the yuckiness of eggplant that I remember as a kid came through! My husband absolutely loved this recipe as well – I did use a ground beef/pork mix for the extra fat. And I cooked up some onion and garlic in bacon fat before adding in the ground beef to brown. Totally a Winner, Carrie Brown! I will try it again with zucchini though – only because my garden is overflowing with it!