Well, well, well. I have quite the recipe for you today! I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned it before, but I’m not a big fan of Italian food. It’s not that I don’t like it, it’s just that there are so many other things I’d rather eat instead of a big ol’ bowl of pasta. It’s just not something that fills me up and keeps me satisfied.

But, last weekend I got a craving for lasagna. My dad had given me a big container of his homemade sauce and I had been keeping it in the freezer for a time when I knew I’d use it all up. Lasagna was the perfect dish to do that!

Although this lasagna has real noodles instead of vegetable noodles (and, ps, my Zucchini and Summer Squash Lasagna post is probably one of the most popular posts I’ve done. It amazes me to see how many people have repinned it on Pinterest. Seriously. It’s crazy!), I think it’s still relatively healthy since I used whole wheat noodles, part skim ricotta and kale. That makes it healthy, right? 😉

Caramelized Onions, Mushrooms, Kale & Ground Turkey Lasagna

Ingredients

• 1/2 – 3/4 lb of lean ground turkey. You can use beef if you’d prefer, or leave the meat out entirely if you want to make it vegetarian!
• 1 small onion
• 2 cups of chopped mushrooms
• 2 big handfuls of kale, rinsed chopped
• 1/2-3/4 of a container of part skim ricotta (or whatever type you want)
• 2-4 cups of sauce
• whole wheat lasagna noodles (I think I used 6 in mine)
• 1/4-1/2 cup shredded mozzarella
• seasonings to taste (I used sea salt, pepper, Mrs. Dash, Pampered Chef & oregano)

Directions

1. Pre-heat oven to 350*. Brown the ground turkey. I added seasonings as well. I also got to use my new meat utensil that I got from my Pampered Chef party… loved it! If your lasagna noodles need to be cooked before you bake the lasagna, do that now as well.

2. While the meat is cooking, chop your veggies. When the meat has finished cooking, remove it from the pan and add in your onions. I “caramelized” my onions by adding about a tablespoon of honey and a tablespoon of brown sugar, BUT, Elle, who blogs over at Nutritionella recently posted an amazing looking breakfast skillet recipe in which she caramelized onions and if you want REAL caramelized onions, follow her instructions 😉 Once the onions are mostly caramelized, add in the mushrooms. Lastly, add in the kale when the mushrooms have softened.

3. When the kale is finished cooking, you’re ready to start assembling the lasagna!

4. I baked mine at 350* for about 30 minutes. Once it looked bubbly, I broiled it for about 5 minutes to get that pretty browned top.

This was the perfect meal for a Sunday night and as I’ve re-heated it a number of other nights this week, I can say that it only gets better! Casseroles are my favorite “Sunday Night Meal” to make because they are so easy to heat up when I get home from the gym and am starving AND they continuously taste good throughout the week. Some leftovers don’t re-heat well, but casseroles, soups, etc. re-heat so well.

I hope you enjoy this- let me know if you try it!

Questions for you: What’s your favorite type of lasagna? Do you make your own sauce? Kale- yay or nay?