Sweet Potato Skillet Lasagna

January 21, 2018 Laura

This dish was a risk for me. I’d been wanting to make a skillet lasagna for a long time, but would I be able to create something that tastes as great as my mom’s labour intensive lasagna using my dad’s homemade sauce? And the biggest question: am I being crazy for substituting paper thin slices of sweet potato for noodles? The test would be my pasta-loving family. Would my daughter eat it? Will my husband even try it since he gets a rash from healthier foods and has a lack-luster attitude towards sweet potatoes?

The first time we recipe tested the dish, as I pulled it from the oven, it smelled like heaven. The combination of the turkey and tender sweet potato was a comforting flavour. The cheesy quotient was at its most gooey and it made so much dinner, we had leftovers for lunches. Scarlett stared at me as she ate her first bites. After years of cooking with me, appearing in our cookbooks and working on our photo shoots and showing up in our TV appearances, the kid thinks she a foodie. To be honest, her palette is more tuned than my own and I often defer to her now. So no this occasion, as she at the lasagne and stared me down, I was keen to hear her feedback. I thought it was awesome. She finally says, “it’s so good, Mommy” and she confirms what I was thinking: We have a winner! My husband was a bit trickier. It took a few tries before he stopped missing the pasta but the cheese certainly helped. For any one who is a skeptic of the power of cheese, let this dish be your answer. It’s also the answer to two nights worth of dinners.

Photos by Ashley van der Laan

Sweet Potato Skillet Lasagna

Yield: Makes: 6 to 8 servings

Ingredients

1 sweet potato, thinly sliced on a mandolin
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 onion, diced
2 cloves garlic
1 lb ground turkey
salt and pepper
2 cups ricotta
1/4 cup parmesan
1 egg, beaten
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 cups mozzarella
1 tablespoon thyme
1 tablespoon oregano
1 28 oz can of diced tomatoes

Method

Preheat your oven to 350.

In a 10" cast iron skillet warm the olive oil over medium heat. Add the onion and cook until translucent, about 2 to 3 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for another minute. Add the ground turkey and cook for about 4 to 5 minutes breaking up any large pieces. Add the thyme, oregano, salt and pepper and tomatoes. Increase the heat so the sauce simmers and cook for about 5 minutes until all the turkey is cooked and the sauce has reduced by half.

Meanwhile, combine the ricotta, 1 1/2 cups of the mozzarella cheese, parmesan cheese, egg and salt. Pulse until smooth. Set aside.

Remove all but 1/3 of the sauce from the pan. Arrange layer of sweet potato slices on top of the sauce followed by 1/3 of the ricotta mixture. Sprinkle 3/4 cup of the mozzarella cheese. Repeat 2 more times with sauce, sweet potato slices and mozzarella. Top the lasagna with the remaining sweet potato slices and spoon the remaining sauce on top. Sprinkle with the remaining mozzarella.

Bake lasagna for about 35 - 40 minutes or until the cheese is melted and browned and the sides are bubbling. Let lasagna rest for 15 minutes before serving.

Sweet Potato Chronicles