Pinterest Cooking: Spinach Lasagna Roll Ups

I know I say this a lot about every recipe, but I was really excited to try this one too! I have made stuffed shells before which are delicious and easy. But when I saw the Spinach Lasagna Recipe on Pinterest...I was even more excited. I love spinach. My dad got me hooked on it as a child and I would eat the entire carton with some salt, pepper and butter. But now we are talking spinach rolled with Ricotta Cheese and Italian Cheeses...even...better! This was a nice hearty, meatless meal! Oh and SO easy!

Here's the recipe and what I changed up-Oh did I mention this is a Weight Watchers Recipe? I'm sure it wasn't after I got my hands on it.

Spinach Lasagna Rolls
Gina's Weight Watcher Recipes
Servings: 9 • Serving Size: 1 roll • Old Points: 4 pts • Points+: 6 ww pts
Calories: 224.9 • Fat: 5.1 g • Fiber: 3.4 g • Protein: 13.0 g • Carbs: 31.5

Ingredients: 

• 9 lasagna noodles, cooked
• 10 oz frozen chopped spinach, thawed and completely drained
• 15 oz fat free ricotta cheese (I like Polly-o)
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 1 egg
• salt and fresh pepper
• 32 oz tomato sauce
• 9 tbsp (about 3 oz) part skim mozzarella cheese, shredded

Directions: 

Preheat oven to 350°. Combine spinach, ricotta, Parmesan, egg, salt and pepper in a medium bowl. Ladle about 1 cup sauce on the bottom of a 9 x 12 baking dish.

Place a piece of wax paper on the counter and lay out lasagna noodles. Make sure noodles are dry. Take 1/3 cup of ricotta mixture and spread evenly over noodle. Rollcarefully and place seam side down onto the baking dish. Repeat with remaining noodles.

Ladle sauce over the noodles in the baking dish and top each one with 1 tbsp mozzarella cheese. Put foil over baking dish and bake for 40 minutes, or until cheese melts. Makes 9 rolls.

To serve, ladle a little sauce on the plate and top with lasagna roll.

Here's what I had to change (okay, I didn't HAVE to change, but wanted to):

I used the Italian Blend cheese from Walmart---it's what I had left over.  I had Parmesan cheese but I just used all of the Italian Blend Cheese and a little sprinkle of Parmesan. The jar of Spaghetti sauce I chose was only 24 oz. of sauce. So I added two cans of tomato sauce and then added some salt, pepper, Italian seasoning. I also added some chopped leftover mushrooms we had from breakfast the other morning. I didn't them to go to waste, so why not? Mushrooms are yummy too! The kids asked what they were in the sauce. I told them, they shrugged their shoulders then continued eating. Clearly, eating mushrooms to them does not cause an "end of the world" moment.

 I used Ragu because that's what was cheapest with a coupon. I would use whatever spaghetti sauce you normally use or prefer.

This is the cheese mix with spinach, egg, Italian Cheese (or Parmesan as recipe calls for), Ricotta cheese and salt and pepper.

Chopped mushrooms, slightly smaller than bite size

Okay, rolling the cheese in the lasagna noodles. My noodles we pretty thin compared to what the recipe shows.  You want to stay pretty close to the middle because when you roll the lasagna the cheese spreads out width wise and you don't want cheese falling out of the sides.  If you do put it back in your cheese bowl for another roll.

Make sure you put some sauce in the bottom of your dish. Or in my case tin dish because I had one left over and didn't want to wash a casserole dish (lazy mom award).

Because my lasagna noodles were slightly smaller I was able to make about 11 rolls.

I also sprinkled a little bit of salt and pepper over the sauce before I put them in the oven. And I also did not put the cheese on top of the rolls before putting them in the oven. Once there was about 5 minutes left of the 40 minutes cook time, I took the rolls out and topped with cheese and put back in the oven to melt.  Oh, also! I wanted to mention that when I boil the noodles, before you put the noodles in the boiling water, sprinkle a generous amount of salt (I always use Kosher when cooking) in the water. This is the only time you can add any flavor to the noodles. And all the cooking shows I watch do the same thing so it makes you look more like a cook!

Voila! The finished product! I served about 2 rolls per person. Except for my 5 year old. He had one.

Since this is such a filling meal, instead of a salad, I sliced up some cucumber that we had in the fridge to eat. Then I just sprinkled some Kosher salt over the top to dissolve in to the cucumbers. My kids love cucumbers! And I am SO okay with them loving greens!

Close ups! Check out the spinach in these rolls! Yum!

Here's proof that my children eat and love healthy food! They were scraping their plate! (ignore the coupon binder and toys on my kitchen table--I have children and that's my excuse).

Ignore their hair. They need haircuts and David had just gotten out of the shower.

 Lastly, I served it with store bought garlic bread...our fave Texas Toast. Mm Mm Good!

Ok the vote--if it wasn't obvious. 4 out of 4 stars! And as much as I didn't think this would make enough for a family of five. These rolls are so filling (Shon had three). So the eleven rolls I made fed the four of us (and would have fed five if we had Ashton). So, I had lunch the next day along with a sample for some of my friends. :-)

Enjoy as much as we did! Happy cooking!