Asparagus and sweet peas lasagne

Lasagne is a very versatile recipe: the traditional one is with meat and tomato, but you can prepare lasagne with fish, eggs, with any sort of vegetable…and as we are in full asparagus and sweet peas season, today I’m happy to share with you my “Asparagus, sweet peas and ham green lasagne”. It’s a very tasty and delicate recipe, one of our favorite.

Start with the veggies: shell the peas and divide the asparagus stems from the spears. Chop the stems in two or three pieces and remove the final white part, it’s too chewy.

Wrap the sweet peas and the asparagus spears in an aluminum foil, close it.

Place the asparagus stems + the aluminum package in a steamer and cook the veggies for 15 min. We want to separately cook the veggies because we are going to create a nice puree from the stems and we will leave the peas and the asparagus spears whole to give more texture to our lasagna.

While the veggies are cooking we have plenty of time to prepare a gorgeous homemade Bechamel sauce, check this video:

here you are the ingredients:

Once the veggies are ready, remove from the steamer the aluminum foil and set it apart to cool down. Place the stems in a blender with few tablespoons of the water still in the steamer pan. If you want you can add a pinch of salt, totally optional. As I’m cooking for kids I prefer to stay low in sodium.

Puree’ the asparagus stems for 1 minute in order to obtain a smooth cream.

It’s time to assemble our lasagna!!!! Get ready with a big rectangular shape oven pan in front of you and all the ingredients next to you: Bechamel sauce, asparagus puree, asparagus spears+peas mix, mozzarella, ham, Parmesan cheese.

Let the fun begin!

1st layer: Bechamel sauce

on top of it few tablespoons of asparagus cream

cover with lasagne. I’m using a store bought lasagne that will not need to be precooked. They will cook in the oven thanks to the Bechamel sauce. That’ why it is VERY IMPORTANT that the Bechamel sauce is kind of runny, very liquid. If the one that you have seems too thick, you can add few tablespoons of milk to it to loose it down.

Trick from my mom: do NOT overlay the lasagne. They should be one next to the other, do not overlay!!! why? they will not cook properly (that’s what my mom says..she’s very picky on this matter)

Let’s keep going with another layer: Bechamel

this time I’m adding sliced ham and mozzarella. The ham is optional (to make my husband happy!!). If you are vegetarian the recipe works perfectly without ham. But don’t skip the mozzarella, that’s essential!

Spread an handful of sweet peas and asparagus spears on top

Another layer of lasagne

And Bechamel sauce + asparagus puree

Lasagne again

Another layer: Bechamel sauce

ham + mozzarella + sweet peas + asparagus spears

Last layer of lasagna

Last layer of mozzarella

Last layer of sweet peas and asparagus spears

And a rich abundant generous amount of grated Parmesan cheese

Done! and ready for the oven. We ended up doing 5 gorgeous layers of lasagna. WOW!! Oven is preheated at 400F. I will cook my lasagne in the oven for 40 minutes.

The parmesan cheese will melt on top forming a nice golden crust…mhhh…lovely!!

READY to be Enjoyed!!!

ciao ciao!