Well it’s 10:38 on Saturday morning and I’m eating lasagna for breakfast. Some of you are thinking “ewwww” but some of you, like me, can eat anything delicious at any time and are thinking “mmmm!” I didn’t plan it this way, it just kind of happened and if you were here, you’d be doing it too! Trust me on this!
I just finished the photo shoot and had to at least taste it assembled (I tried the crepes already with blackberry syrup–nom, nom) or how could I write about it with any integrity? See, I did it for you! You’re welcome! I haven’t even looked at the photos yet which is usually my first step in a post, but this is so tasty that I had to start writing about it while it was fresh in my mind.
Ok, on to the recipe…. So I’ve been kicking around a gluten free lasagna idea for awhile using the garbanzo beans concept from these two wildly successful recipes: apple & garbanzo bean cake and chocolate orange garbanzo bean cake that I made last month. I thought if I puree’d the chickpeas with milk and eggs I could get a crepe-like consistency that could stand in for noodles. Gluten free pastas abound but they aren’t cheap and lasagna noodles especially are difficult to find. This would be perfect–if it worked! I had set aside some of the classic bolognese from my last post and bought the ricotta and mozzarella and I was excited about making the crepes this morning. Yeah….about that. The first couple of attempts weren’t promising I have to admit. I could have caved and added some gluten free flour but I wanted this to work without it so it would be inexpensive and easily accessible to those without easy access to gluten free products. I tinkered with it, making some adjustments to quantities and it finally held together–but they are still fragile and not easy to work with so be prepared for that. It’s worth the time though, especially if you have to be gluten free and are looking for alternatives to store bought pasta. Do experiment with this recipe and let me know if you find a way to make them easier to work with.
Gluten Free Lasagna w/ Garbanzo Bean Crepes
Author: Mellissa Sevigny
Recipe type: Pasta
Cuisine: Lasagna
Ingredients
- 1 15 oz can of chickpeas, drained and rinsed
- 8 eggs
- 1¾ cup milk
- ¼ tsp kosher salt
Instructions
- Add all of the ingredients to a blender and puree until smooth. Skim off any foam from the top and let the batter rest for a few minutes.
- For a breakfast crepe, you will need patience, a nonstick pan, butter or spray, and a good quality (read: thin and flexible!) nylon spatula. Keep the heat low so that you don't brown them too much while you are waiting for them to set. When set, flip carefully--they do tear easily but they are light and delicious with syrup and/or fruit.
- To make these as a lasagna noodle, I don't recommend the pan method. It takes forever to make enough and it's irritating if they tear on you when you flip them. After scrapping three of them as noodle potential I had a brainstorm and poured about ¼ inch of batter in the bottom of a dish and microwaved it for 1 minute, then another 30 seconds. It worked!
- But even better I think would be to pour the batter into a well greased cookie sheet or two depending on how much you need and baking it at 325 for a few minutes until set. Not sure how long it would take but since they are thin probably not more than 8 minutes. Then you can cut them into squares to fit your pan or make them individually like I did for the photos.
Notes
I haven't experimented with freezing these made for later use but I imagine it would work, just put wax paper in between them so they don't stick together.
You can use any lasagna recipe with these–veggie or meat. I layered them with my bolognese sauce, ricotta, romano and mozzerella cheese and it was delicious! Let me know what you think!
I miss a good rustic lasagne like this one…
Hope you will consider submitting this to Healthy Aperture. Our gluten free fans would love it!
Thanks for the invite to Healthy Aperture–I submitted!
This sounds awesome, I can’t to try the “noodles” Thanks!
I was thrilled to find a gluten free pasta recipe! Thank you! I’m new to cooking, so I love the experimental parts of all this. I tried baking the batter on a cookie sheet, but I think I poured it too thick. The sheet firmed up, but stayed very wet on the bottom. It tastes good, though, so I’ll find something to do with it. Next time, I’ll try pouring maybe half the batter and baking. The sheet was about 1/8 inch thick, and I baked it for close to 30 minutes, even flipping the sheet over to see if that would help. No dice. A thinner pour next time may do the trick. Thanks for the idea!
I tried making garbonzo flour pasta and even bought a hand pasta noodle machine, but it’s such a mess. It was a little easier for a large lasagna noodles, but forget the thinner noodles. It alwasy got stuck, so I tried buying Quinoa noodles, but they are so expensive.
Also I coudn’t be sure when I cooked the noodles I made that it was cooked enough or it was too much and fell apart in the water.
I’m going to tried you lasagna noodles in the baking sheet in the oven. It sound so much easier and less messy.
When I make pizza dough with garbonzo flour sometimes I roll it out, but now I started making it more liquid and poured in on to a heavily greased cast iron skillet. It seems to get a thinner dough without the mess and even comes out better with a crust since I heat the oil in the oven before puoring the dough onto the pan and bake till set, and then put my toppings on. Thanks a lot for sharing for your recipe.
Can you fix my spelling errors with always and pouring. I was rushing. Thanks
Hi Melissa,
I have not tried this recipe, but what about garbanzo bean flour which can be used to make little pancakes, Years ago I made something called chapatis (?? I don’t remember the spelling) What do you think.