For a delicious, budget-friendly meal – try this vegetarian lasagne

With our rand falling and grocery costs skyrocketing, it’s become more important to be able to cook on a budget.

Click HERE for Food24’s favourite budget-friendly recipes.

Clover’s new cookbook, Economical Family Fare, offers over a hundred low-cost meals to do just that. What’s better, is that a percentage of the profit will be donated to Clover Mama Afrika, the company’s social investment project.

We picked our favourite recipe: Spinach and butternut lasagne

INGREDIENTS:

9 white lasagna sheets

5ml vegetable oil

20ml butter

3 garlic cloves, finely chopped

1 large onion, finely chopped

Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

1 litre low-fat milk

60ml cornflour

300g finely chopped spinach

150ml finely chopped fresh parsley

2ml ground nutmeg

1kg butternut, peeled, de seeded and cut lengthwise into slices

500ml grated white cheddar cheese

DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C.

2. Soak the lasagna sheets in warm water until needed.

3. Heat the oil and butter in a large pan and fry the garlic, onion, salt and pepper until the onion becomes translucent. Add a tablespoon of water if the mixture becomes dry.

4. Mix 125ml milk and the cornflour until smooth. Heat the remaining milk to a simmer in a large saucepan. Mix the cornflour sludge through the milk and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat and let the sauce simmer for five minutes while stirring continuously.

5. Add the onion mixture, spinach, 125ml parsley and nutmeg to the sauce. Mix well. Allow the sauce to simmer until the spinach has wilted. Season to taste. Remove from the heat.

6. Steam the slices of butternut for five minutes until slightly tender, but not mushy.

7. Drain the lasagna sheets.

8. Spread 250ml of the spinach sauce over the bottom of a 30cm x 20cm ovenproof dish. Arrange three lasagna sheets over the sauce. Arrange half of the butternut over the lasagna sheets and sprinkle a third of the white cheddar cheese over it.

9. Spread another 250ml spinach sauce over the cheese, followed by three more of the lasagna sheets. Arrange the remaining butternut on top of the lasagna sheets. Sprinkle with another third of the cheese.

10. Spread 250ml of the spinach sauce over the cheese, followed by the remaining lasagna sheets and the last of the spinach sauce.

11. Cover the lasagna with foil and bake for 40 minutes. Remove from the oven and remove the foil. Sprinkle with the remaining cheese and bake for a further 15 minutes until the butternut is tender and the cheese bubbly.

12. Allow the lasagna to stand for 10 minutes before serving.