Slow Cooker Veggie Lasagna Recipe
Did you know that you can use your Crock-Pot slow cooker to make lasagna?!
I make the best veggie lasagna for my family in the slow cooker, and I promise you won’t even miss the meat. This easy, delicious family favorite has tons of flavor, simple ingredients, and it’s packed with fresh hearty veggies.
If you enjoy simple Crock-Pot recipes like me, this idea is a must try!
Hip Recipe Tips:
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- Prefer meat in your lasagna? Simply cut back on the veggies and cook ground beef or sausage on the stove to use for your filling with the marinara sauce.
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- You can customize the type of chopped veggies used according to taste and what you have on hand. You’ll need about 3 cups chopped.
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- 32 oz. seems to be the perfect amount of sauce for this in my opinion. You may need to buy two jars and measure 4 cups of sauce, or the Classico jars from Costco work great!
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- Consider spraying your Crock-Pot with non-stick spray first to ensure easy clean up afterward.
Slow Cooker Veggie Lasagna
yield: 8 SERVINGS
prep time: 15 MINUTES
cook time: 2 HOURS
total time: 2 HOURS 15 MINUTES
Here's a delicious veggie lasagna with 3 types of cheeses that can be made right in the Crock-Pot slow cooker!
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 3 cups chopped veggies (I used mushrooms, onion, bell pepper, and spinach)
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 32 oz. marinara sauce (4 cups)
- 15 oz. container Ricotta cheese
- 2 cups shredded cheese, divided (I used a mozzarella and parmesan mix
- 1 egg
- 9 long lasagna noodles, uncooked
- Garnish Idea: fresh chopped basil
Directions
1
Sautee the chopped veggies on the stove with olive oil and minced garlic for about 3-5 minutes. Add the pasta sauce with the veggies, and mix. Remove from heat.
2
In a medium bowl, mix 1 and 1/4 cup shredded cheese, egg, and ricotta cheese. Reserve 1/4 cup of shredded cheese for the very top.
3
Spray the Crock-Pot slow cooker with non-stick spray, then spread about a fourth of the veggie sauce mixture on the bottom. Add 3 of the uncooked lasagna noodles, and break them apart to fit.
4
Spoon on 1/2 of the ricotta cheese mixture, and spread it with a spoon. Layer more sauce, 3 more noodles broken to fit, the remainder of the ricotta cheese mixture, more sauce, 3 more noodles, the last of the sauce, and sprinkle 1/4 cup of cheese on the very top.
5
You should have a total of 4 layers of veggie sauce, 3 layers of noodles, and 2 layers of ricotta cheese mixture total.
6
Cover and cook on LOW 4 to 5 hours (or on HIGH 2 to 2.5 hours) or until liquid is absorbed. If you opt to cook on high, watch the bottom carefully to ensure it doesn't start to burn past the 2.5 hour mark.
7
Garnish with fresh chopped basil, optional.
It’s settled. Slow cooker lasagna rocks!
The veggies taste fantastic, and it’s amazing how the noodles cook perfectly in the slow cooker! I love that you can use whatever combination of vegetables your family likes and that you have on hand. It’s also convenient if your family sometimes eats at different times and you need to keep a meal warm ready for a bit. It makes great leftovers, too.
Enjoy!
Here’s how to make steel cut oatmeal overnight in your Crock-Pot!
YUM!!!! This looks delicious. I’ll be trying this on Sunday!
Love veggie recipes, thank you!
So if you wanted to use meat, would you have to adjust anything?
I haven’t yet, I assume you could cook meat and add it to the sauce instead. Thanks!
I’ve used meat and its cooking now! Looking forward to trying it!
We only make lasagna in the slow cooker anymore. We do it with meat, brown it first with onions, green peppers and garlic, but undercook it just a little so that it doesn’t get dry while it’s in the crockpot. We only use one jar of pasta sauce, but I think it’s a preference thing. And you can also substitute cottage cheese for the ricotta.
And yes, you just add the browned meat to the sauce
There are a variety of vegan meat options – you can go with crumbles, sausage or meatballs. Gardein makes the best vegan meatballs, IMHO. 🙂
Thank you for another great recipe!!! Printing it out for future.
You’re welcome Jean!
Looks so delicious!
This looks delish! I’ve never thought of making lasagna in my slow cooker, and I use my slow cooker all the time?!?!!! I need to hit my self in the head! I’m adding this to my menu this week, can’t wait to try it! Thanks as always Lina for your amazing recipe ideas!
Yeah! You’ll love it, enjoy 🙂
Pinned it!! Sounds awesome and simple all at the same time!
Yum! Can’t wait to try, thanks Lina!
Yum! I really wish I wasn’t lactose intolerant!
Leave out the cheese!
Good point! 🙂
Thanks for breaking out the hi/low on the slow cooker. Looks great, looking forward to trying this.
I haven’t tried lasagne but I have tried bow tie pasta, spaghetti sauce, frozen meatballs, and sprinkle with cheese.The frozen meatballs you get in the freezer section are really good after slow cooking and they go on sale pretty often so if you want to put meat in maybe try those. It was really good but Lina’s recipe is much healthier and I love the idea of veggies in the lasagne.
I cook my spaghetti sauce this way 🙂 1 large can crushed toms with seasoning, small can tomato paste, and 16 ounces frozen meatballs. 4 hours on low and it’s perfect for spaghetti night!!!!
This vegetarian thanks you! 🙂 It seems like I can find SO many meals with meat, but don’t find as many good ones without. I pretty much always make the same things. So thank you for always giving me so many options!
So do you use regular lasagne noodles or the oven ready lasagna noodles?
Regular lasagna noodles should cook fine in the crockpot. Regular uncooked lasagna noodles can also be oven ready, just add 1 cup of water to the sauce before baking, covered.
Cream cheese instead of ricotta cheese is good too.
I used regular. They cooked fine 🙂
We made veggie lasagna this weekend and everyone loved it. Will have to try the crockpot version next time!
Have this in the crock pot at this moment!! Had to refer to original recipe COVER with lid! Still unclear how this will brown??? Will report back in 3 hours!!
Yes whoops close the lid! 🙂
Browned on top and delicious!
Hooray! 🙂
Thanks for the recipe. I know I’m 2-3 hours away from deliciousness! But I used cottage cheese instead of ricotta cheese (picked up the wrong one). Hope it doesn’t matter.
Did it matter? I did the same thing
Can you do it without the egg?
Can’t wait to try it.
What can I use instead of an egg? Is it even necessary?
Sometimes I use a little bit of coconut milk mixed with breadcrumbs as a binder instead of an egg (in various dishes). It doesn’t alter the flavor at all.
I make it without egg… absolutely fine!
Any freezer instructions you could provide?
Hi, it’s Faith💜. I’m curious about calories and fat per serving. I know it’s hard for the fiber and protein depending on what veggies and cheese you use but is love a round about figure calories and get per serving if I use part skin cheeses. Thanks. I love your website, instagram and recipes.
My wife and I made it before work this morning, big dirty lasagna for dinner, love slow cookers, so good!
Made this last night and it turned out AH-MAZING. I made 3 modifications. I upped the veggie content. Used half an onion, half a bag of prewashed spinach, 1 1/2 bell pepper (red and yellow) and about 8 baby portabella mushrooms. I sautéed the veggies WITH OUT the sauce. When I layered I did noodles, ricotta, veggies, then spooned sauce over the veggies, added cheese. I found that one 24 ounce worked fine with this process. I used way more cheese (Italian blend shredded) and grated parmesan. Cooked on high for 2h15. Turned out looking just like the picture and I didn’t feel it needed more sauce.
Also to keep it from sticking coat your crock with olive oil first. I put about 2 tablespoons of sauce on the bottom and a spoon full of veggies (not 1/4 as the instructions recommended) then put my first layer of noodles down. No stick after it finished!
Last year I made lasagna in the slow cooker, unfortunately, the outside edges came out overcooked, hard. So recently my husband saw a cooking show where they made baked ziti in the slow cooker, they said to avoid the burnt overcooked edges to line the inner walls with aluminum foil – I’ll try that next time.
I have made this using 1 jar and one cup of sauce,but I added meat to the mix and ended up using close to 2 full cups of sauce. This meal is AWESOME and we love how dinner is ready when we walk in the door. Thanks for sharing.
This slow cooker Veggie Lasagna is delicious!
This was such a simple dish to make and very tasty.
Is the egg needed? Can I use Tofu instead of the Ricotta cheese? TIA
I am pretty sure you could use tofu instead. I have made stuffed shells before in my oven with a tofu substitute for ricotta and nutritional yeast was used to give it a little bit of cheesy flavor. That recipe is here: https://www.pbs.org/food/fresh-tastes/stuffed-shells/. I haven’t tried it with this recipe yet but I don’t see why it wouldn’t work. I’m excited to try it out since I have 4 containers of tofu to use and I love me some lasagna!
Has anyone tried this using gluten-free lasagna noodles? Thanks!
I want to add broccoli and zucchini, should I sauté with the other veggies?
Can you use frozen spinach with the fresh veggies?
What size of crock pot should be used? Does it matter? I have a 3.5 and a 4 quart.
Would brown rice lasagna noodles work? I wonder if the liquid or cooking time would need to be modified?
Looks so yummy….but I only have a 4 at crock and it’s the standard round…..will it still work?
Looks amazing! Can’t wait to try it. Good thing Shredded Cheese is on sale at Safeway this week! https://supersafeway.com/?p=9940
I thought this recipe was great!! What I did different from the recipe, is I added yellow bell peppers, I didn’t add the extra fourth of a cup of sauce(huge mistake!🙄) and I added a sprinkle of sage and basil after the final shredded cheese on top. The added ingredients made it quite tasty😋 however, the missing fourth cup of sauce made a huge difference!! PLEASE anyone who is making this add the fourth cup of sauce. I promise it really does make a difference!! 🍽
I made this last weekend and I’ll be making it again this weekend. I added 1/2 lb of ground beef and onions and also subbed cottage cheese for ricotta. Best lasagna I’ve made!
Has anyone made this with whole wheat lasagna noodles?
Trying this today…thanks for all the tips!
Great to see a veggie recipe but to make it vegetarian you cannot use Parmesan as this is made with calf rennet. Substitute it with a different cheese or get a vegetarian Parmesan style cheese. You can find out more at saycheese@vegsoc.org
This was my first lasagna I’ve made! I couldn’t be happier with the results. My boyfriend and coworkers loved it. Perhaps I used too much spinach, but I ended up using two 24oz jars of sauce. Thanks for the recipe!
Thanks Christine! Glad you loved.
Making this tonight!!
I just put the lid on the crock pot. I didn’t have cottage cheese or ricotta so I used plain yogurt and cream cheese with mozzarella. It tasted great. Can’t wait to taste it! I’ll let you know how it turned out later. Thanks for the recipe!
Making it tonight using whole wheat lasagna noodles and asparagus since we’re not spinach eaters. Also, low fat cottage cheese instead of ricotta. Didn’t have that extra cup of pasta sauce, so added 1/2 cup water to the can of sauce to make it stretch a little. Easy to assemble, and smells great so far. Excited to see how the family likes it. Need more meatless meals! Thanks for posting!
Has anyone doubled this recipe and if so does it turn out ok?
This was a hit an an office potluck today. I wanted a vegetarian friendly main course and this was perfect. Noodles cooked up great, a little crust on the bottom after 2 hrs high and 1 hr low but not burned. Will definitely make again! Came together in about a half hour this morning, so pretty quick and easy for a lasagna.
I’m so glad! Thanks for sharing Natalie 👍
Thanks for this amazing recipe!! Wowza, I can’t believe how good and easy it was.
Along with the spinach, I used zucchini-squash and lots of onion, bell peppers and mushrooms. I sprayed my crock pot with coconut oil and then put 3 tbsps of sauce and 1/4 cup of veggies on the bottom so nothing would stick. I also kept the veggies and sauce separate. I only used 1 jar of sauce and 1/4 cup of chunky tomatoes but that was plenty. I kind of forgot the order of my layering (haha), but it worked out great you wouldn’t know the difference. I put it on high for 4 hours and went to babysit my nephews … returned home at 12:30 in the morning but my house smelled so good, I had to have a taste so I did #latenighteating
This was a real hit with me – thank you so much and I look forward to trying out more of your recipes. Thanks again!!
That is so great! Thanks for sharing 👍
Did anybody use any other vegetables than the ones given? My boyfriend isn’t a fan of those so I wanted to try it with something else to still get a good flavor.
We are actually having a rainy play date with a bunch of 10 year old boys in San Diego…so I’m going to try this veggie lasagna. Thanks for the recipe! I am new to the slow cooker!