Knowledge Base > Dan Marek - Ask Me Anything (Office Hours)
Dan Marek - Ask Me Anything (Office Hours)
This event was on
Tuesday, December 05, 2023 at 11:00 am Pacific, 2:00 pm Eastern
Join Chef Dan Marek in his virtual office as he welcomes all of your questions. This event was created for you and we encourage you to Ask Anything – from cooking techniques to cours… Read More.
Question:
What is your best substitution for the filling to a vegan lasagna?
— Cheryl Roberts
Answer:
You know, when I make a vegan lasagna, I typically go the mushroom and spinach route. So what I'll do is I'll get a wide variety of different kinds of mushrooms. So I'll get, um, you know, maybe some shiitake, maybe even some woodier, um, and some baby Bellas, and then maybe some portini and I'll saute those all up, uh, and, you know, maybe with some onions and get 'em caramelized. And then I'll typically take some spinach and, um, wilt that down, just really quickly, put it in the water and take it back out again. You can use frozen if you want as well too. Um, and that's typically what I use for my filling for my lasagna. Now, I will typically make a cashew, um, you know, cream that kind of goes through it. And I'll also use a vegan ricotta, and I usually make a tofu, uh, ricotta, which is just, uh, I mean, we, we show how to do it in some of our classes, but it's basically just a, a tofu that's crumbled, pardon me, uh, tofu that's crumbled up. And, uh, I'll take a mixture of lemon juice and nutritional juice, nutritional yeast, salt, and then maybe some Italian herbs and blend that all together. You can put oil in it if you want to, but it doesn't need it. And then pour that over the top of your tofu. And that's a great ricotta substitution, and it's wonderful for pizzas. It's wonderful for lasagnas as well too. So then you can just do your normal layering just like you would on a, a vegetarian lasagna.