Lasagna, for me, is first and foremost a pasta dish. I, therefore, opt to focus on the pasta element when I make lasagna. That entails much more pasta sheets than the other elements. I focus on making the best-tasting pasta. Homemade pasta sheets are a must. But there are so many great flours one can use to up the flavor complexity in your dish.

I have already posted a lasagna dish about a year ago (see the post here). However, in this post I go a little bit more in-depth regarding how I make the pasta, and how I make a vegetarian version (with milk for the white sauce and a little bit of cheese). This post builds on one I made yesterday of the humble vegetable Swiss chard (if you want to read more about Swiss chard). I have also made many dishes in which I use Swiss chard, if you'd like to see how I prepare this vegetable. (Quiche recipe,, and a soup recipe.)

Firstly, let us make some pasta sheets.

Homemade Pasta Sheets

I use various types of flour in my recipe for pasta sheets:

• Normal bread flour,
• Barley flour, and
• Semolina.

First, I make a well in the middle and fill it with water. I use 50% water relative to the weight of flour. That is, for every 100 grams of flour I use 50 grams of water.

Start to mix it gradually adding some of the flour to make a smooth slurry.

You can use a bench scraper or your hands to roughly shape or form a shaggy dough. There will be lots of extra flour. Some people do not like the mess on their hands, but homemade pasta should be fun!

Start to knead the dough. As this is a 50% hydration do (i.e. for every 100g flour, 50g water) there will be lots of flour at this stage. It will be incorporated do not worry. Just keep on kneading.

You can see how the dough is taking all of the extra flour and starting to look smoother.

The final product is so smooth. It is almost a miracle that all the flour is incorporated.

Moving on to the fillings

The white sauce

You can make the white sauce vegan if you prefer. My white sauce is already vegan except for the cheese. I added some milk as well, but you can totally use vegetable stock and no cheese at all.

The Wild Herb and Chard Filling

I picked a mountain of filling. Or, I picked a mountain of leafy greens. You can opt to use different ones, but I used:

• Chard leaves,
• Dandelion leaves,
• Amaranth leaves,
• Marog (African spinach) leaves,
• Garlic chives, and
• Nettle-leaved goosfoot leaves.

As you can see, I picked a huge amount! This recipe makes for too much lasagna, but at the end you will see this and understand why.

Make the leaves in any manner you like, I use the "creamed" spinach style. See the above-mentioned posts for how I do this. Briefly:

Chop the leaves finely, and use the stalks where you would have used onions. You can also add onions. Then the fun starts! They layering.

Layer the Lasagna

As mentioned, I focus on creating many layers. This creates for a more "pasta-focused" dish. Herewith is my process:

Your setup station is important. Sauces to the one side, pasta to the other and the lasagna dish in the middle.

Begin layering. I like to add a base layer before any pasta.

Add the pasta in various manners. It always feels like an artwork for me.

Bake and Serve

Bake this monstrosity for 30-45 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius. Leave it at room temperature to "settle" for 30 minutes. Cut into it and reveal all these layers. Look at and admire your creation!

The Next Day

You can easily freeze this dish. But you can put it in the fridge and warm it up the next day. To utilize the layers and to make an exceptional dish, get a frying pan and heat up some oil.

The darker the better, but watch out to burn them! But the flavor just intensifies.

The crispy edges are amazing.

You do not need meat or tomato sauce to make great lasagna! So please do give this a try. Utilize the many layers, fry them up in some coconut oil and make it crispy. Enjoy this really tasty dish, and enjoy the taste of the wild herbs! Please let me know if you tried this dish and how it went! Most of all, enjoy it!