We had this for dinner last night! I wanted to make a lasagna in a crockpot instead of the oven and I didn’t want to use zucchini or spaghetti squash… sooo I thought fresh SPINACH!!! Perfect!! And it worked very well! Husband said “hmmmm hmmm”!
I did cook the meat first and made the sauce before putting into the crockpot! (Further down is a note on how to just take out frozen meat sauce for this crockpot meal)
Brown the ground beef in a skillet with a little garlic and onions (if you want). Next make the sauce. Here is a link to my spaghetti sauce. I used the recipe but a little different. I added 3 small cans of tomato paste to the browned meat. I added about 4 cups of water, salt, dried basil, garlic powder, and about 4 drops of liquid stevia to the mix.
****Quick Step for frozen spaghetti meat sauce****
Take frozen spaghetti meat sauce out of freezer. Allow to thaw. Then just assemble the layers as directed.
Once finished, 1/3 of the meat sauce to the bottom of the crockpot.
Next, I mixed up my cheese mixture.
Then fresh spinach to that.
Meat sauce again.
Cottage cheese mixture and mozzarella.
Repeat till you have used up all ingredients.
Cover and allow to cook for 3 hours on high.
The spinach will be nice and wilted and the cheese melted!
I served this with a low carb bread recipe (on page 265 of Trim Healthy Mama called Bread in a Mug) that I tripled, added 3 tbsp. of butter instead and added 1 tsp garlic. I baked it in the oven for 22 minutes at 350 degrees. Came out perfectly! I forgot to spray the pan so it came out like cornbread but I got no complaints!
This meal is an S if you follow Trim Healthy Mama! Enjoy!
Crockpot Spinach Lasagna
Description
Another crockpot meal using Spinach to replace the pasta in your dish. You won’t miss it!
Ingredients
Meat sauce
- 2 lbs of lower fat ground beef (you can also use ground turkey or deer) browned
- 2 cloves of garlic chopped
- 4 cups of water
- 3 cans of 6 oz tomato paste
- 2 tsp basil dried
- 2 tsp salt
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 4 drops of liquid stevia or a tsp of Truvia
Cheese Mixture
- 3 cups of cottage cheese (I used 2%)
- 2 eggs
- 1 cup mozzarella
- 1 tsp basil
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 2 tbsp. parm
Lasagna
- 3/4‘s of a big 16oz tub of baby spinach
- 2 cups of mozzarella
- 1/2 cup of parm
Instructions
- Brown meat.
- Add garlic chopped.
- Add the tomato paste.
- Add spices and water.
- Mix well.
- **Read Note on Frozen Meat Sauce
- Place 1/3 of meat sauce at the bottom of crock pot.
- Mix cottage cheese, eggs, basil, salt, parm and 1 cup of mozzarella.
- Spread 1/3 of cheese mixture on top of meat sauce.
- Place half of the spinach on top of the layer in crock pot.
- Add the next 1/3 of the meat sauce on top of spinach.
- Add the next 1/3 of the cheese mixture, then 1 cup of cheese.
- The last of the spinach comes next.
- Add the last of the meat sauce on top of the spinach.
- Add the last of the cheese mixture.
- Add 1 cup of mozzarella on top of that.
- Add 1/2 cup of parm.
- Cover with a lid and set on high for 3 hours or low for 5 or 6 hours.
Notes
- **If using frozen meat sauce, just allow the meat sauce to thaw. Follow the rest of the steps from there.
- This is an S lasagna, gluten free/wheat free. I did serve with a low carb bread from a recipe in the Trim Healthy Mama book. This served 3 adult eaters, and 4 little eaters.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 6
What size pan did you use for the bread, and was it metal or glass? Both of these recipes look so good!
I used a 2 quart glass pan. I would suggest to add melted butter mixed with garlic & basil or oregano to the top of the bread when it’s finished baking. That would make it more garlicy. 🙂
These recipes look awesome! Thank you so much for sharing, it has helped my THM journey so much! My family has loved all of your recipes I have made for them! I have a quick question about the bread, did you add 3 TBSP of butter ( as opposed to 1 tsp from the recipe in the book) total or 9 TBSP when you tripled it?
I added only 3 tbsp.(instead of 3 tsp for tripling) for the whole tripled recipe! 🙂 But I will add melted butter, salt & garlic powder to the top next time to make it more garlicy! 🙂 And thank you so much!!
Does “parm” in the recipe refer to Parmesan cheese? If so, is that fresh Parmesan or the Kraft grated in a container?
Yes, parmesan cheese. Just the kind you get in the green container. I would love to use fresh Parmesan but not always able too! 🙂
This was delicious!!! We even shared with our neighbors who aren’t THMers and they gobbled it up.
One question…how did you get yours to set up so well? Mine was like soup and I feel I followed the recipe exactly.
Yay!! Hmmm… mine is a little on the soupy side but not extremely. I didn’t make my sauce extra soupy and drained the meat well too. :/
This looks great and I’m excited to try it. I’ll be feeding 8–6 adults and 2 littles and will need to make more, of course. I am wondering what size crockpot you used here so I can figure how much I can add and still fit in my 6 quart. Thanks for the help.. and for sharing!
I have a big 6 quart crockpot. This feeds about 6 at least, maybe more! 🙂
I don’t see water listed as an ingredient, but it’s in the directions. How much do you use?
There should only be water in the tomato sauce, no extra water! 🙂
Can’t wait to try this!
I can’t wait to try this recipe. Sounds delicious!
Can you please edit this. The directions above, at the top, say to add 4 cups of water and the recipe section says tomato paste, not any water.
In the comments you say to use no water only tomato sauce.
So, wondering what you actually did. The four cups of water would have accounted for the “soup” one commented posted about.
Yes, I am so sorry!! I just updated it! Thank you so much!!
Awesome recipe, thanks For sharing. I made this and loved it
I Have one question. It was a little watery and not firm like the way your looked in the picture. Did I do something wrong? I have 4 cups of water to the meat sauce as instructions indicated. Thinking I should not have done this. Do you have any thoughts or solutions?
Honestly the spinach adds lots of water to it as it breaks down. You can add less water to the meat sauce or you could also put this over Dreamfield pasts or veggies to give it more bite! 🙂
Yay!!! 🙂
This looks so good I can’t wait to try. I was wondering if I could use ricotta instead of cottage cheese. If so how much do you think I should use. Thank you for all your yummy recipes.
Yes, I believe you can… I just have always used cottage cheese! 😉
My bread came out horrible. My family took one bite and that was that. It was very egg like and not in a good way. What brand of almond flour do you use?
LOL, it can be a required taste. They have some great options in the new Cookbook. I use a lot of Trader Joe’s Almond Meal and Honeyville Almond Flour.
Oh and thank you so much for the recipe it was amazing. My kids gobbled it up and didn’t even notice the spinach!
Yay!!! 🙂
I love this recipe and make it pretty frequently. How much of the recipe would you say you have for a serving? I am trying to break it down and figure calories to track for a bit to see why I’m not losing. Thanks!
I’d say a bowl full. Or maybe two cups at the most. It can be filling.
Could this be cooked on low for a longer period of time? I could do it on high but then it would sit in the crock pot for 5+ hours on warm before I could get home to shut it off. Not sure if that would be a good idea.
I think it could… I have not tried it but I don’t see why not! Or possible even warm if all the ingredients are cooked!
I just made this with 1 block of spinach & fam loved it! Thanx! I served with a side of egg noodles for family, salad & wheat rolls for family too. I put this together Saturday night put crock on high when I got up Sunday. Was petfect agtet church teady for lunch!
AWESOMENESS!!
This was wonderful! We enjoyed the use of cottage cheese instead of cream cheese so much better. As for it being runny…ours seemed that way at first, however once cool enough to eat in our bowls it thickened up nicely. Thank you for another wonderful family recipe!
I’ve been working on this recipe for a while now. I like to use sweet Italian sausage for half the meat. That means eliminating the salt in the sauce. I’ve reduced the water to nearly nothing, and plan to use 2 cans tomato sauce/1 can tomato paste next time, with NO added water. I also cooked this the last couple hours with the lid askew so much of the extra liquid evaporated off. Next time, I will add 1/2 tsp of fennel seed to augment the sausage I used. With that, I think the recipe will be just about perfect, and not soupy as I found like the others who’ve commented.
Oh my! I was browsing for a couple of crockpot recipes today and happened to see this. Since I am the only THMer here, I cut recipe in half and added chopped canned myshrooms. I just finished a bowlful for evening dinner- Delicious Now I wish I had made the bulk recipe. I froze two servings.but I don’t think they will be in the freezer very long. Thank you for the delicious recipe