Spinach Lasagna Rolls

Even though I’ve said before I’m not much of a cook, and I still maintain that I’m not, I’ve started to embrace my role as a housewife.  I still shutter a little when I say “housewife.”  It’s not really met with the same kind of understanding as a stay at home mom.  The American spouses here are not allowed to work unless it’s on base, and the majority of jobs on base go to Italians.  Therefore, we’re all housewives or house husbands.  As a spouse our job is to support the mission and support our active duty members.  For me, that means I’m cooking dinner these days.  Which also means I’m pinning a lot of recipes on Pinterest!

I found and pinned this recipe ages ago over at SkinnyTaste, but I never made it.  I had a friend who tried it and had some problems, so I was never eager to give it a whirl.  However, now that I’m getting a little more creative in the kitchen, I finally decided to try it out.  We both LOVE it!  It’s really easy and feeds us for a few days.  I’ve changed it a tiny bit from the original, so here’s my version:

Ingredients:

• 10 lasagna noodles, cooked
• 10 oz frozen chopped spinach, thawed and completely drained
• 15 oz fat free ricotta cheese
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 1 egg
• salt & pepper, to taste
• 1 regular size jar tomato sauce
• 10 Tbsp part skim shredded mozzarella cheese

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350°.

Boil noodles for approximately 10 minutes being careful not to over cook.  Over cooked noodles will fall apart easily.  Stir noodles continually to keep them from sticking to the pot.

Ladle about 1 cup sauce on the bottom of a 9 x 12 baking dish.

In a medium bowl combine spinach, ricotta, parmesan cheese, egg, and salt & pepper. Dry each noodle and lay them out on a piece of parchment paper. I usually do about 5 noodles at a time. Take 1/3 cup of the ricotta mixture and spread evenly over each noodle. Roll each noodle carefully and place seam side down onto the baking dish.

Cover the noodles with the remaining tomato sauce and top each with 1 Tbsp mozzarella.  Cover the baking dish with foil and for about 40 minutes or until cheese melts.  Remove foil and bake an additional 5 minutes until the cheese begins to brown.

According to SkinnyTaste each roll contains just 225 calories and 5 grams of fat!  This recipe is yumm-o, I promise!  It would be easy to add some browned ground beef or turkey to the ricotta mix for a meaty version as-well.  We try not to eat meat at every meal and love it as is.

As they say in Italy, Buon Appetito!