Mushroom ragu lasagne with celeriac béchamel

The heart of this vegetarian bake is a rich mushroom ragout that you can also make ahead and freeze.

Mushroom ragu lasagne with celeriac béchamel. Credit: Freshly Picked with Simon Toohey

• serves

  8

• prep

  25 minutes

• cook

  1:20 hour

• difficulty

  Easy

Ingredients

• 100 g Swiss brown mushrooms
• 4 g salt
• 50 ml vegetable oil
• 1 leek, diced
• 1 red capsicum, diced
• 1 long red chilli, diced (seeds removed if desired)
• 1 stalk celery, diced
• 1 carrot, diced
• 1 onion, diced
• 3 cloves garlic, sliced
• 2 bay leaves
• 3 sprigs thyme
• 300 g mixed mushrooms
• 30 g dried shiitake
• 1 tbsp tomato paste
• 100 ml red wine
• 300 ml vegetable stock
• 1 400 g can cherry tomatoes
• ½ tsp smoked paprika
• Bunch parsley stalk, roughly chopped

Plant-based bèchamel

• 1 celeriac
• 300 ml oat milk
• 2 tbsp nutritional yeast
• ¼ tsp salt plus pepper to taste
• A few thyme stalks

To assemble

• 200 g breadcrumbs
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed or minced
• 3 sprigs thyme, leaves picked
• 1 packet vegan lasagne sheets
• Extra virgin olive oil
• Salt

Cooling time: 30-45 minutes.

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven 180°C.
2. Start by making the cheat’s mushroom soy sauce. Blitz up the Swiss brown mushroom in a food processor with some salt. Spoon into a bowl and let it sit for as long as it takes to make the rest of the ingredients.
3. In the meantime, place a large saucepan on medium heat and add the vegetable oil. Add the leek, capsicum, red chilli, celery, carrot, onion, garlic, bay leaves and thyme and cook for 10 minutes or so, until the onions have become translucent. This part is the most important part… the longer and slower you cook this part, the deeper and sweeter the flavour will be. But I understand the time thing isn’t everyone’s best ingredient, so cooking it faster is still delicious.
4. Dice up the mixed mushrooms and bung them in. Blend the dried shitake to a powder and throw that in too. Cook the mushrooms until the liquid has been cooked out. Add the tomato paste, red wine, vegetable stock, tin of tomatoes, smoked paprika and parsley stalks. Then add your secret weapon. Squeeze the liquid out of the salted mushrooms into the pot. Reserve the mushrooms till the end and keep cooking on medium heat until the liquid has been cooked out again. Cook over a low heat for a further 40 minutes, or until the mixture has reduced.
5. In the meantime, peel the celeriac and chop it up into small (about 2.5 cm / 1 inch sized) bits. Add them to a saucepan with the oat milk, nutritional yeast, thyme and salt and pepper and cook until it has gone super soft. Remove the thyme stalks and blitz the mixture to a smooth paste.
6. Combine the breadcrumbs with the thyme leaves and minced garlic.
7. Lay a ladle of the mushroom ragu at the bottom of a baking tray, then lay some lasagne sheets on top then more mushroom, then the béchamel then pasta sheets and repeat until you run out of either space, pasta sheets or ragu. You always, however, want to finish with the béchamel. Top the béchamel with the garlic bread crumb mixture, drizzle over a small amount of olive oil to help the breadcrumbs go crispy and top with a pinch of salt.
8. Cover with foil and bake in the oven; after 20 minutes remove the foil and continue baking for another 20 minutes or until the top is delicious and roasty dark and bubbling away. Allow to sit for 30-45 minutes before serving.

Note

You can use any leftover mushroom ragu to make mushroom jaffles.

Cook's Notes

Oven temperatures are for conventional; if using fan-forced (convection), reduce the temperature by 20˚C. | We use Australian tablespoons and cups: 1 teaspoon equals 5 ml; 1 tablespoon equals 20 ml; 1 cup equals 250 ml. | All herbs are fresh (unless specified) and cups are lightly packed. | All vegetables are medium size and peeled, unless specified. | All eggs are 55-60 g, unless specified.