Creamy Sausage and Spinach Lasagna

I certainly love a good red-sauce lasagna—but a creamy white-sauce version? Oh yeah, I’ll take that any day. My Creamy Sausage and Spinach Lasagna is rich and indulgent–tasting, yet clocks in at fewer than 400 calories per serving. The sauce uses a combo of flour-thickened milk and chicken stock to keep things light, and chicken Italian sausage pulls its weight, flavor-wise, without loading on calories and fat. (Scroll below recipe card for photo step-by-steps on layering.) Hooray for lasagna night!

Yield: 6 servingsAuthor: Ann Taylor PittmanPrint Recipe

Creamy Sausage and Spinach Lasagna

prep time: 35 minscook time: 42 minstotal time: 77 mins

How 'bout a plate of cheesy, starchy, creamy comfort ... that won't leave you feeling awful after you eat it? That's what this white lasagna offers. It hits all the high notes of comfort food goodness but keeps things a little lighter than the typical versions you'll see. You won't have to resign the rest of your night to recovering from lasagna, if you know what I mean. It's packed full of garlicky spinach, too, and the thin lasagna noodles do something really rather lovely—they don't soak up much sauce, so the lasagna stays creamy-wonderful. My husband, who typically doesn't like lasagna, asked to pack up leftovers to take to work the next day. But then the kids ate what would have been the leftovers. Teenagers...

ingredients:

• 9 oz. raw chicken Italian sausage (with casings removed, about 3 links)
• 1 Tbsp. canola oil
• 5 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 lb. fresh spinach
• 1 1/2 cups 2% milk
• 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 cup unsalted chicken stock (such as Swanson)
• 1 bay leaf
• 1/2 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
• 1/8 tsp. kosher salt
• 2 oz. Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, grated (about 1/2 cup packed)
• Cooking spray
• 8 oven-ready lasagna noodles
• 6 oz. shredded low-moisture, part-skim mozzarella cheese (about 1 1/2 cups)
• Chopped parsley (optional)

instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 375°F.
2. Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add sausage to pan; cook until browned, stirring to crumble, about 5 minutes. Remove sausage from pan. (Do not wipe pan clean.)
3. Add oil to pan; swirl to coat. Add garlic; cook 1 minute, stirring constantly. Gradually add spinach, tossing with tongs until spinach wilts, about 3 minutes total. Spoon spinach mixture into a strainer; press with back of a spoon to remove excess moisture. (Do not squeeze spinach dry in a towel, as this will make it so dry that it absorbs all of the cheese sauce. Trust me; I found out the hard way.)
4. Combine milk and flour, stirring with a whisk until smooth. Pour milk mixture and chicken stock into skillet; add bay leaf. Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring frequently with a whisk. Simmer until thickened. Remove from heat, and stir in pepper, salt, and Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese. 
5. Coat an 8-inch square glass baking dish with cooking spray. Spread 1/2 cup sauce in bottom of dish. Top with 2 noodles. Sprinkle one-third of sausage over noodles, then top with one-third of spinach. Sprinkle with 1/3 cup mozzarella. Top with 1/2 cup sauce. Repeat layers twice (2 noodles, one-third of sausage, one-third of spinach, 1/3 cup mozzarella, and 1/2 cup sauce). Top final layer with remaining 2 noodles. Spread remaining sauce over noodles, and sprinkle with remaining 1/2 cup mozzarella. Cover pan with foil coated with cooking spray. Bake at 375°F for 40 minutes. 
6. Uncover pan. Heat broiler to HIGH. Broil lasagna until browned on top, about 2 minutes. Sprinkle with parsley, if desired.

NOTES:

Calories 376; Fat 16g (sat 7g); Protein 27g; Carb 33g; Fiber 4g; Sugars 4g (added sugars 0g); Sodium 720mg

Created using The Recipes Generator

This lasagna does involve a little bit of prep: browning the sausage, wilting the spinach, making the sauce, and shredding the mozzarella (seriously, please shred it yourself from a block; it’ll melt smoother and be creamier). Before you start layering, gather all the components together:

And then rearrange them in order of the way you’ll layer them in the pan. Then spread 1/2 cup sauce in the bottom of the baking dish…

And top with two of the lasagna noodles.

Then sprinkle over one-third of the cooked sausage.

Top with one-third of the spinach.

And then 1/3 cup of the mozzarella.

Spread 1/2 cup sauce over all that.

Repeat those layers twice, and then top with 2 more noodles and the rest of the sauce.

And finish with the rest of the mozzarella cheese. Then cover the dish with foil and bake at 375°F for 40 minutes.

At that point, the lasagna will be done, but just a little pale. See?

But then pop it under the broiler for a few minutes (and top with parsley), and wow—hubba hubba!