Quick Instapot Lasagna
My family has absolutely no Italian heritage, but my boys could eat anything pasta and/or anything with cheeses and marinara til they die. When I cook a recipe and can make it super quick in my instapot, everyone is happy. This recipe takes less than 30 minutes start-to-finish and is a definite crowd pleaser. If you want the vegetarian/vegan version or the gluten-free tips then scroll to the bottom. Enjoy!
Instapot Lasagna
Equipment
- electric pressure cooker
Ingredients
- 1 lb pork sausage ground beef works too
- 45 oz marinara
- 16 oz low-fat cottage cheese or ricotta
- ¼ cup dried onion bits
- ⅛ tsp red pepper flakes
- 1 cup chicken broth low sodium
- 8 oz mozzarella cheese shredded
- 1 lb noodles spiral noodles, mini lasagana noodles, campanelle
- parmesan cheese shredded
Instructions
- Set Instapot to saute and add in a drizzle of olive oil, then the pork sausage. Add in the dried onions and the red pepper flakes, brown the sausage.
- Cancel the saute setting and pour in the chicken stock and the marinara sauce. Then the uncooked noodles. DO NOT STIR, just press the noodles down until they are all submerged in liquid. If you stir the mixture before it pressure cooks you run the risk of the noodles burning to the bottom of the pot.
- After noodles are submerged, set the instapot to manual on the high setting for 4 minutes.
- Once the instapot finishes, depressurize it. Add in the mozzarella cheese and low fat cottage cheese; mix well.
- If the mixture is too liquidy for your liking, just turn on the saute setting again and stir continually until it begins to thicken. Stirring continually will ensure that the bottom doesn’t burn. Once desired consistency, serve immediately and sprinkle with parmesan cheese.
Nutrition
To make this dish vegetarian, instead of pork sausage, diced eggplant and zucchini are super yummy. Once the olive oil has been drizzled, add in the diced eggplant and zucchini and just saute slightly with the dried onions and red pepper flakes to begin cooking. It would only take 3 minutes tops. Then follow the same directions as above. Also vegetable stock instead of chicken stock. If you would like to make this fully vegan and omit the cottage cheese and trade it for raw vegan almond cheese. I’ve also recently seen raw vegan cashew cheese. Mozzarella cheese can be substituted for dairy-free vegan mozzarella cheese.
GLUTEN-FREE:
If you are not vegetarian or vegan but are looking to make this gluten-free, gluten-free noodles are very common. If you don’t want to do noodles or can’t find gluten-free noodles, thinly sliced zucchini or eggplant are equally yummy. I like to use my mandolin to slice the vegetables super thin, if you don’t have that tool, hand slicing works great. Just slice it as thin as you can without losing a finger.
