Cauliflower Lasagna Recipe

Why do we care more about bad things when we hate being in deep sauce? Let’s make a cauliflower lasagna and see what’s in the sauce!

There are things in the world that has the ability to turn the tables from good to bad no matter how hard the circumstances seem. Many times, life presents us hard choices we have to take. Decisions that determine the rest of our life.

What’s behind the sauce?

Sometimes these choices are subtle and seem insignificant like going into one shop over another one, but that single decision can influence a myriad of following events. Several psychological studies have demonstrated that our thoughts are influenced hours after the actual actions were taking place even if we don’t attribute our feelings to it anymore.

A jerk who can’t use the lanes on the highway properly or a blown coffee maker reside in our mind for hours after the act and can really ruin our day without us even knowing that our decisions are motivated by those actions.

On the contrary a nice cup of coffee, a compliment or an unexpected random act of kindness that restores our faith in humanity influences our day similarly. Unfortunately though, we don’t talk about good things nearly as much as about bad things.

Why do we care more for the sauce?

We are hard wired to be attentive to bad things and we favor to know about bad news over good news. It’s not our fault really but rather the consequence of our long history being a prey in the wilderness. Bad news made us aware of possible dangers and enabled us to be prepared for it, boasting our chances of survival.

Unfortunately, this brings the inconvenient consequences of that we are only pay attention to things that are bad. If something needs our attention, be it a news channel, social network or our kids, they have to show something upsetting for us to get out of our train of thoughts and to really care about it.

What makes sauce spread?

Interestingly, bad things are not only make us care more or spreads quicker but stick better too. Once honest people make a couple of dishonest things, we recategorize them as dishonest ones for good but if a dishonest person makes a couple of honest deeds, we don’t really care.

It seems that one good deed is not enough to redeem a man of a lifetime of wickedness but it’s enough to build a cult around it or give birth to superstition.

How does sauce get into our lasagna?

Superstitions use our inherent ability to learn about our surroundings by observing it and exploits our drive to understand the world to control it. Unfortunately, our explanations are always relative to our level of knowledge on the subject.

The misunderstanding roots in the fact that the end results are sometimes coincide with the desired outcome, like it did when troops were using headphones for ordering supplies that came by parachutes from airplanes. Once the troops had gone, ingenious people who observed the behaviors, built a cult around it using coconut headphones praying for the John God to bring riches to their villages. (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/in-john-they-trust-109294882/)

It seems like building a cult comes easier than expected if something good is involved in it like Coca Cola, sweets or lasagna. Although, there is not an official cult judging by the number of recipes found online about lasagna, we could expect it to be soon.

How cauliflower gets into lasagna?

Much like pizza, lasagna is something that can raise the hope of anyone who is deep in misery. Sometimes all we need to make the world a better place is a bite of happiness and if that bite helps us achieve what we need then we could even close our eyes over the fact that it is made of cauliflower.

Ingredients

Beginner

Pasta

For detailed instructions check out: How to rice cauliflower.

2 lb / 1000g Cauliflower
4 Eggs
1 teaspoon Salt

Sauce

1 tablespoon Salt
1 lb / 500g Ground meat
1 teaspoon Salt
½ lb / 250g Tomato sauce

Layering

1 lb / 500g Ricotta cheese
9 oz / 250g Mozzarella cheese (sliced or grated)
1 tablespoon Oregano
1 tablespoon Basil

Advanced

Pasta

For detailed instructions check out: How to rice cauliflower.

2 lb / 1000g Cauliflower
4 Eggs
1 teaspoon Salt

Sauce

For detailed instructions check out: How to make Bolognese sauce

4 oz / 100g Bacon or pancetta (diced)
1 Onion (diced)
1 Carrot (diced)
2 Celery stalks (diced)
1 lb / 500g Ground beef
1/2 cup / 125ml Water or white wine
2 Tomatoes (diced)
1 teaspoon Salt
6 piece Black pepper (whole)
1/2 cup / 125ml Milk
Pasta for serving
Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese for topping (or some other hard Italian cheese)
½ lb / 250g Tomato sauce (optional)

Layering

1 lb / 500g Ricotta cheese
9 oz / 250g Mozzarella cheese (sliced or grated)
1 tablespoon Oregano
1 tablespoon Basil

Kitchen equipment

8″ x 8″ / 20.5cm x 20.5cm Casserole dish

How to make Cauliflower lasagna

Beginner

Pasta

Rice the cauliflower with a food processor or shredder. For detailed instructions check out: How to rice cauliflower.
Cook the riced cauliflower in the microwave oven on maximum settings for 2 minutes, stir then put it back for 2 more minutes. Let it cool a bit and get ready for pressing the moisture out of it.
Using a cheese cloth or simple kitchen towel, squeeze out as much moisture from the cauliflower as possible. From a small head (2lb / 1kg) cauliflower more than a cup can be squeezed out.
In a bowl mix the squeezed cauliflowers with the eggs and a bit of salt.
Spread the cauliflower dough into a parchment layered baking sheet. We need at least two layers of lasagna so choose a baking sheet that is at least double the size of our lasagna baking dish.
Place it into a 400°F / 200°C preheated ovens bottom rack until golden brown spots start to appear here and there for about 20 minutes.
Carefully take the cauliflower pasta out by the parchment paper and flip it upside down. They should be stuck pretty well together so we shouldn’t be worry about breaking it. Carefully peel off the paper from the cauliflower pasta and not the other way around.
Cut it to the size of the lasagna dish.

Sauce

At the same time we are processing the cauliflower pasta, pour some oil into a frying pan and saute the diced onion until it gets a glassy / translucent look for about 5 – 10 minutes.
Add the ground meat and brown it.
Add the tomato sauce and cook it until the tomato sauce water content reduced about at least a quarter. The whole process should take about 30 minutes.

Layering

Slice the mozzarella up.
Mix the ricotta with basil and oregano.

Assembly

Once the sauce is done, divide it into two parts and spread one half onto the bottom of a casserole dish.
Place a layer of cauliflower pasta on top.
Spread half of the ricotta and place half of the mozzarella on top too.
Repeat it again using up the the second half of the meat sauce, ricotta and mozzarella.
Place the lasagna under the broiler on maximum temperature on the top shelf until golden brown spots start to appear on the mozzarella for about 10 minutes then it’s ready to be served.

Enjoy!

Advanced

Sauce (Bolognese)

Render fat out from bacon, pancetta or any other type of pork fat that we can use as lardon. We can substitute it with a tablespoon of fat or cooking oil, as well. No harm would be done. Add onion, carrot and celery then saute with the bacon on high heat for about 5 minutes until the onion gets a slight translucent/glassy look.
Add the ground meat. Mix it well with the vegetables then cook it for 10-15 minutes while stirring it often until all the bigger chunks fall into smaller pieces. At this point the beef should lose all its pinkness and browned properly.
Add the water or wine, tomatoes, salt, black pepper and milk. Mix it well together, put the lid on and simmer it for 4 hours on low heat, stirring occasionally.
For more detailed instructions for the filling, check out how to make Bolognese sauce a.k.a Ragu. If our patience is wearing thin then use pureed tomato and cook it only for about 30 minutes before getting it ready for layering.

Pasta

Rice the cauliflower with a food processor or shredder. For detailed instructions check out: How to rice cauliflower.
Cook the riced cauliflower in the microwave on maximum settings for 4 minutes, stirring it halfway through then using a cheese cloth or simple kitchen towel squeeze out as much moisture of the cauliflower as possible. From a small head (2lb / 1kg) cauliflower more than a cup can be squeezed out.
In a bowl mix the squeezed cauliflowers with the eggs and a bit of salt.
Spread the cauliflower dough into a parchment layered baking sheet.
Place it into a 400°F / 200°C preheated oven’s bottom rack until golden brown spots start to appear here and there for about 20 minutes.
Carefully take the cauliflower pasta out by the parchment paper and flip it upside down then peel off the parchment paper.
Cut it to the size of the lasagna dish.

Assembly

Once the sauce is done, divide it into two parts and spread one half onto the bottom of a casserole dish.
Place a layer of cauliflower pasta on top. Spread half of the ricotta and place half of the mozzarella on top too then repeat the layering one more time.
Place the lasagna under the broiler on maximum temperature on the top shelf until golden brown spots start to appear on the mozzarella for about 10 minutes then it’s ready to be served.

Enjoy!