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Back on the Commune Spinach Lasagna

A lasagna made with tofu, spinach, and a white sauce.

From the Recipes Wiki (Fandom) · 19 ingredients
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Why it works: Spinach and soy milk work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and 9 recipes mention both. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

The recipe

Oven375°
Time30 minutes

Ingredients

Contains: milk, wheat, soy (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Saute onions in olive oil until they begin to brown.

  2. Add spinach and heat for a minute.

  3. Set aside to cool.

  4. Crumb firm tofu in a bowl.

  5. Add soft tofu and mix into a ricotta-like consistency.

  6. Add spinach mixture to tofu.

  7. Add remaining ingredients and stir until everything is properly mixed.

  8. Cover the bowl and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.

Make the white sauce

  1. Make the white sauce when ready to assemble the lasagna.

  2. Melt the margarine in a saucepan.

  3. Add the flour and whisk into a paste.

  4. Add soy milk and continue whisking until the mixture thickens.

Assemble and bake

  1. Grease a lasagna pan and place 3 noodles on the bottom.

  2. Pour 1/3 of the white sauce over the noodles.

  3. Spread half of the spinach mixture on top of the white sauce and noodles.

  4. Make one more layer using the remaining spinach mixture.

  5. Place a noodle on the top and pour the remaining white sauce over the lasagna.

  6. Cover the dish with aluminum foil.

  7. Bake in a 375° oven for 30 minutes.

  8. Let cool for 5-10 minutes before serving.

Recipe from the Recipes Wiki (Fandom).

This recipe comes from the Recipes Wiki on Fandom and is licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Our formatting and summaries are shared under the same licence.

Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Spinach + soy milktop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together9 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Basil + oreganotop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Oregano + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together791 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Basil + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  5. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together29,030 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Firm tofu
Crumbled to form the ricotta-like body of the filling.
Soft silken tofu
Adds creaminess and moisture to the filling, binding it to a ricotta-like texture.
Frozen chopped spinach
Provides the main filling vegetable and moisture, which is why it is cooled before mixing.
Soy milk
Forms the base of the white sauce, thickening with flour into a smooth binding sauce.
Flour
Thickens the melted margarine and soy milk into a smooth white sauce.
Vegan margarine
Adds fat and richness to the white sauce and helps form its roux.

The step that matters

Add soy milk and keep whisking until the sauce thickens. Flour starch only thickens fully when it is whisked into the hot fat and liquid as it heats; stopping early leaves a thin sauce, and lumps form if liquid is added too fast.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tofu, spinach, basil, oregano, thyme, pepper, garlic):

  1. Tomatobetter flavor fit
  2. Eggplantbetter flavor fit
  3. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tofu, spinach, basil, oregano, thyme, pepper, garlic. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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