As you probably know from other recipes I’ve made, I do not like eggplant. Any recipe that calls for it, I would typically substitute with zucchini. I just don’t like the texture and flavour of it, so I’ve stayed away. Upon seeing this recipe, I was going to make the same substitution, but I had a small change of mind. I decided to make the recipe as written because I thought the new year would be a good opportunity to give it another chance. I also figured that the eggplant would probably get hidden in everything else. Good news for me, it did!

This lasagna was so delicious. My favourite part was the cottage cheese and spinach mixture. It was so good on its own (and would be amazing simply tossed with pasta). It added such a creaminess and it has so much less fat than traditionally-used ricotta cheese.

Then, because the cheese mixture wasn’t enough, there is lots of shredded cheese between all the layers too. It was so gooey and who doesn’t love a cheesy lasagna? I definitely loved it.

Last is the sauce. It was a simple mix of tomatoes with spices, including a good amount of basil. You could easily substitute store-bought tomato sauce, but homemade is much brighter and fresh.

Between all the pasta, cheese, cottage mixture and sauce, the eggplant was almost hidden. Everything tasted so good. My only complaint about this recipe is that it took some time to prepare. I spent about 1 hour making all the components and assembling, which was a little more prep than most meals I make these days.

With that being said, I would not suggest this recipe for the middle of the week, I’d save it for the weekend. This is a special meal and it’s better to eat it when you’re not rushing to get food on the table. I hope you make it though. And for all my fellow eggplant-haters, I hope you’ll give this lasagna a try.