Jono & Jules do food & wine

We’ve made many veggie lasagnes but this is definitely our favourite; really tasty, moist and not too rich or heavy. We had to stop ourselves eating the 6 portions all at once despite only the two of us for dinner. We managed to resist, but only just! Serve with a green salad.

(Apologies for the imperial measurements – Julie doesn’t know the metric recipe for béchamel.)

Roasted Veggie Lasagne – to serve 6

• 1 pint / 600ml homemade tomato sauce – make your own or use our favourite
• 3 red peppers
• 2 aubergines
• 8 tbsp olive oil
• dried lasagne sheets
• handful cherry tomatoes, halved
• 125g ball mozzarella, torn

FOR THE BÉCHAMEL

• 2 oz butter
• 2 oz flour
• 1 pint milk

Heat the oven to 200ºC/fan 180ºC. Cut the peppers into large chunks and thinly slice the aubergines. Lightly grease two large baking trays with olive oil. Put the peppers and aubergines on the greased trays and toss with the olive oil and plenty of seasoning. Roast for about 25 minutes or until lightly browned.

Meanwhile make your béchamel sauce. Melt the butter in a saucepan, stir in the flour, then cook for a couple of minutes. Gradually add the milk, stirring continuously stirring. When all the milk is added, keep stirring until the sauce comes to the boil. Turn the heat down and cook until the sauce has started to thicken.

Reduce the oven to 180ºC/fan 160ºC and lightly oil a large ovenproof dish (ours is 20 x 27cm and it fits perfect). Layer a third of the roasted veg on the bottom of the dish. Cover with a third of the tomato sauce. Top with a layer of lasagne sheets (break them to fit – don’t overlap them), then drizzle just less than third of the bechamel sauce over. Repeat until you have used 3 layers of lasagne.

Spoon the remaining sauce over the top, making sure that the surface is totally covered. Scatter the cherry tomatoes and mozzarella over the top. Bake for about 45 minutes or until bubbling and golden brown.

Wine Suggestion: The tomato sauce is acidic so you need to balance this with the wine. Perhaps a light and fruity white with good acidity – we had an off-dry Riesling from Western Australia already open and it worked surprisingly well.