Keto Lasagna (Hearts of Palm Noodles)

I discovered this great website where I can order all sorts of keto friendly products called Naturamarket.ca. One of the things I found on their list of keto products was Natural Heaven Veggie Pasta Noodles made from hearts of palm.  

Have you ever tried them? They reminded me of artichoke with the smell and texture...

That being said, they are very noodle-y and work amazingly well in lasagna. I will be ordering more of these to experiment with for sure. Being as they are made from hearts of palm, a vegetable, they are naturally vegan and gluten free. I made my own simple tomato sauce for this lasagna but you could easily use a sugar free, store bought tomato sauce if you prefer. 

Keto Lasagna (Hearts of Palm Noodles)

Ingredients

Noodles

2 containers Natural Heaven Veggie Pasta Noodles (or similar)

Meat Sauce

1 can (398 ml) diced tomatoes with garlic

1 slice onion, diced

1 lb lean ground beef

Cheese Layer

1 container (500 gr) Ricotta cheese

1 egg

2 Tbsp Parmesan, shaved

1/2 cup mozzarella, shredded

Topping

1/2 cup mozzarella, shredded

2 Tbsp Parmesan, shaved

Directions

Preheat oven to 350. 

Prepare meat sauce - In a large frying pan over medium heat, simmer the tomatoes and onions about 5 minutes. 

Push them to the side of the pan, add in the ground beef, and cook the beef until it is browned. Stir the tomatoes and ground beef together near the end when the beef is almost done. Set aside. 

Prepare cheese layer - stir together the ricotta, egg, first amount of mozza and Parmesan until well mixed. 

Assemble the lasagna - In a 9 X 13 oven safe dish, layer a single layer of the veggie noodles. Drop 1/2 of the cheese layer on top by the spoonful. 

Gently spread the cheese layer out with the back of a spoon.

Drop half of the meat sauce on top of the cheese layer by the spoonful and spread out as well as you can. Don't worry if there are gaps, you will be doing a second layer.  

Place another layer of the veggie noodles on top and then layer with the remaining cheese and meat sauce. Top with the last of the veggie noodles and then sprinkle with the remaining mozza and Parmesan. 

Bake at 350 for about 30 minutes - until heated through and cheese is melted. Remove from oven and let sit for about 5 - 8 minutes before serving. 

Slice into 6 pieces and serve immediately. 

The nutritional counts, if you cut this into 6, are: 481 calories, 18.5 fat, 12.4 total carbs, 1.8 fiber (10.6 net carbs), and 28.6 protein. (As always, if you are counting for dietary reasons we recommend you enter your totals into a nutritional calculator yourself to be totally accurate.) 

This looks and tastes aaaaaaalmost exactly like a "regular" lasagna. I found the hearts of palm to have an artichoke-y flavor to them and the texture was fabulous. I'm pretty sure if you used a store bought, sugar free tomato sauce you'd be able to fool everyone into thinking they were eating "regular" lasagna. 

I love finding new ingredients to play with; like the hearts of palm, and can't wait to experiment some more! Any suggestions? Leave them in the comments below! :)