Pumpkin Lasagna with Roasted Butternut Squash

November 2, 2011 by Debi 46 Comments

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My Pumpkin Lasagna with Roasted Butternut Squash tastes like eating Autumn. All pumpkin-y and spicy and cheesy. Moist and full of flavor. It’s everything you want in a great comfort casserole. And, it’s vegetarian, and full of healthy good for you ingredients!

Inspiration for my Pumpkin Lasagna

The other day I made the kitchn’s Pumpkin & Ricotta Pasta Casserole. While I made it, I kept thinking about how much it reminded me of lasagna. Pumpkin lasagna. Must’ve been the Ricotta in the dish.

Well, and it has pasta, just a different form of pasta. So, I decided that if the flavors were good, I’d try to recreate it as a lasagna.

The Pumpkin & Ricotta Pasta Casserole that inspired this Pumpkin Lasagna

The flavors were great! Perhaps it was a little on the dry side for my taste. And, I wanted a little more spice in the pumpkin (Dan and I have always liked our pumpkin pie a little on the spicier side).

Dan also wanted a little more pumpkin flavor. I think the addition of more spice will up the pumpkin flavor. But, just to make sure, I thought that a roasted butternut squash would up the ante. Sweet Potato Puree or canned yams would also do the trick (as well as adding a little moisture).

How to cut a Butternut Squash

The one thing I don’t care for in the kitchen is cutting into a hard butternut squash. Well, the kitchn to the rescue again! They posted a trick to cutting any hard winter squash (acorn, butternut, pumpkin, hubbard, anything) without that annoying worry of chopping into your hand.

Butternut Squash from my garden. It’s really the easiest thing that I grow. In fact, if you have a little plot of land, I’d totally recommend growing a hard winter squash!

Quoted from the kitchn: “Here it is: roast the squash whole. Just for the first twenty minutes or so until the flesh begins to soften. Then you take it out of the oven and slice it into halves, quarters, chunks, whatever you need. Another forty minutes in the oven will complete the roasting.”

It totally works!

I tried it and, YES it works! I roasted the squash whole for 20 minutes; took the squash out, turned off the oven, and let it sit while I ran some errands. I came back and cut it open. The knife slid into the squash with little resistance. So easy! So great!

Once you’ve cut it, finish roasting for 40 more minutes. I’m totally doing this from now on, especially since my garden always giving me hard winter squash.

So, the instructions for the pumpkin lasagna call for this roasting method, because I think it’s that good.

My favorite lasagna recipe

The rest of the changes I made to the original casserole were to make the dish a little more like a spicy pumpkin pie crossed with my Red Pepper and Fresh Mozzarella Lasagna.

And, how was it? Great! It tasted like eating Autumn. All pumpkin-y and spicy and cheesy. It was moist and full of flavor. Dan even said he couldn’t tell which he liked more, the new pumpkin lasagna or the red pepper one. Awesome!

Healthy lasagna

On the health side of things, this vegetarian lasagna is a good source of vitamin A, is filled with Beta-Carotene which can protect your cells from the damaging effects of free radicals and can enhance the functioning of your immune system.

This lasagna is also lower in calories and fat than most.

Other fabulous Pumpkin Recipes you’ll love!

Click on the photo to get to the recipe!

Pumpkin Coconut Soup

Pumpkin Spice Cake with Apple Butter Cream Cheese Frosting

Cheese Tortellini in Pumpkin Gorgonzola Sauce with Roasted Sweet Potatoes