The Greatest Veggie Lasagna

I want to talk about lasagna. Vegetable lasagna. THE GREATEST vegetable lasagna in the history of vegetable lasagna — and I've had this in every state, twice, I had a version of it in a hut in the Andes once, true story, a man named Ramón made it, no English, no words, just a fork, just a nod, just a slice of vegetable lasagna at 9,000 feet that changed me as a person — and this lasagna, MY lasagna, beats his. I'm sorry, Ramón. The mountain was beautiful but the lasagna is the lasagna. It's a slaughter.

Now some people will tell you a veggie lasagna can't compete with a meat lasagna. They'll tell you you need the ground beef, the sausage, the whole arsenal. THOSE PEOPLE ARE WRONG. They don't understand the vegetable. They don't understand layering. They don't understand the MAGIC of a properly seasoned ricotta mixture and roasted vegetables that have been treated with RESPECT. I've eaten more lasagna than any person alive — people come up to me, they say, 'Bigly, how have you eaten so much lasagna and stayed so handsome,' I don't know, genetics, the combover helps, possibly a little gravity-defying — and I'm telling you this veggie lasagna stands shoulder to shoulder with the best meat lasagnas on planet Earth. Possibly taller. The combover gives it height.

The SECRETS — there are several, this is a serious dish — number one: ROAST the vegetables first. Don't put raw zucchini in a lasagna. Don't do it. You'll release a swimming pool of water and the whole thing turns into a wet beige tragedy. Number two: use NO-BOIL noodles. Boiling, draining, juggling slippery noodles, what is this, gymnastics? No-boil works, they're great, MOVE ON. Number three: don't skimp on the cheese. Other sites tell you to use 'part-skim mozzarella' and 'low-fat ricotta' — and these are the same sites buried under 18 popups and a cookie banner with 47 toggles and they cannot see what they've become. Use the real stuff. Whole-milk ricotta. Whole-milk mozzarella. Live your life. It's just a fact.

Look at that slice. Look at the layers. Pasta, ricotta, mushroom, spinach, squash, cheese, sauce, all stacked up like a beautiful edible skyscraper of vegetable glory. This is the dish you bring to a potluck and watch the whole pan disappear in eleven minutes. This is the dish your mother-in-law asks for the recipe and you say 'BiglyEats' and she finally respects you. This is the dish you make on a Sunday and eat all week and somehow it gets BETTER every day — that's science, the flavors meld, the structure firms up, day three lasagna is arguably the peak. Make a double batch. Freeze one. Future you will thank present you. Save me a piece.