I know some pretty rad bloggers out there. Know, meaning I read their blogs. Read, meaning I look at their pictures. And then I sometimes steal their ideas. It’s just easy to do. I’ll see their blog post about some kind of ridiculously amazing paleo food invention and can’t help but try to make it my own. I do that often. Stealing? Maybe. Judge me. Do it. Sorry for not being sorry.
So I recently decided to steal Health Bent‘s paleo butternut squash lasagna idea. Have you ever seen this website? Holy sh*t, it’s STUPID fantastic. By far one of the best paleo blogs around. Not only is their website ridiculously good, but their recipes are to.die.for. When I first started eating paleo, their website was what made me believe I could actually stick with paleo. And I absolutely love their view point on the paleo diet. It is very 2011. AND the couple that runs the website is pretty damn good looking. I like good looking people.
Now it’s time to cook.
Garlic Chicken Butternut Squash Lasagna
Ingredients
- 1 large butternut squash
- 1 head garlic clove, roasted
- 1/2 yellow onion, diced
- 1/2 lb chicken, diced
- 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
- 1/4 cup canned coconut milk
- 1/8 cup tomato sauce
- 1 teaspoon basil (fresh or dried)
- 1 teaspoon parsley (fresh or dried)
- salt and pepper, to taste
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
- Cut the end off the bulb of garlic to reveal the cloves inside. Wrap in aluminum foil and throw in the oven for 20-25 minutes.
- While the garlic is roasting, you’ll need to cut your butternut squash. Use a sharp knife ya dummy.You can do this a couple different ways but remember, you are trying to get the long squash into “lasagna type strips”.
- What I did (Megan and Brandon at Health-Bent taught me this): Cut the end off the squash, then use a peeler to take off the skin. Then cut the squash into 1/4s lengthwise. Remove seeds and strings. Then you can do 1 of 2 things: either use a knife to slice the butternut squash into strips or use a mandoline to slice the butternut squash into thinner strips (that’s what I did).
- Set aside and begin to make your chicken and sauce.
- Add olive oil to a skillet over medium-high heat. Add your diced onion to begin to cook. After about 3 minutes of coating your onions and bringing out their flavor, add your diced chicken along with a bit of salt. Let the chicken cook under low heat while you make your sauce.
- Your head of garlic should be roasted by now, so pull it out of the oven and remove the roasted cloves and put directly into your food processor. You can you a fork to pull them out of just squeeze the b*tch. Up to you.
- Add olive oil to your food processor along with the roasted garlic and turn your food processor on. Prepare yourself for your kitchen to smell like heaven. Sh*t, I love garlic. Once the garlic cloves have become a paste, add your coconut milk and tomato sauce along with basil and parsley. Pulse until saucy. Taste and add salt and pepper to your liking.
- When the chicken is ALMOST done cooking (yes, it can still have a little pink to it), remove from heat.
- Now for the lasagna stacking. Pull out a 8×8 or 9×9 glass baking dish, coat the bottom of the dish with a bit of sauce, then add a layer of butternut squash strips, a layer of chicken, and a layer of sauce. Repeat until you are all out of chicken and butternut squash. The last layer should be butternut squash and topped off with sauce.
- Bake, uncovered, for around 40-45 minutes. The squash should be tender BUT do not cut into it until it has set for a while. I gave mine about an hour. I know, I know, it sucks ass. But it will be a difference and will actually be like lasagna instead of a throw together. Got it? Cool.
Can you make this as a “throw together”? I have butternut squash in my house now that is already pre -sliced so it won’t make a lasagna. thoughts?
absolutely!
what do you do with it while it sets for an hour? keep it in the oven but turn the oven off or set it on the counter? I’m just thinking it will get cold sitting out.
thanks
you can just cover it with some foil to keep it warm 🙂
We will be investing in better knives, or a better slicer. I’m glad we do crossfit, to be strong enough to slice squash. In the oven now – thanks for all the fantastic recipes (and hilarious stories)!!
Made this for Meal #1 as part of a One Chicken Four Meals challenge. For this recipe, I used 2-1/4lbs slow-cook roasted chicken (Nom Nom Paleo recipe). I added the chicken to the sautéed onions when they were a nice color. The lasagna came out fantastic!! The butternut squash and the garlic really added life to the modest portion of chicken, but overall this meal packed a great punch and was very filling. Each portion got a huge whopping side of sautéed beet greens, and a couple halved-grape sized tomatoes. (Raspberry Banana Whip for dessert). Thank you for the inspirational lasagna recipe, Juli. -LJ, Anchorage, AK
Made this tonight and the flavors are amazing! I was a little bummed because i should have made more sauce with mine, it didn’t make much for some reason and so by the time i was at the top layer i was scraping the bowl. Oh well going to double it next time! Your blogs are hilarious! Love your stuff!!!
I can’t wait to try this!! I’m going to alter it a bit, though, since I bought a big container of pre-chopped butternut squash (yay Costco!). I’m going to keep the sauce the same and just toss everything together like a big damn casserole!! Can’t wait to try it!!
I’ve been looking at this butternut squash that a friend gave me from her garden for a few days now,wondering what to do with it. Tonight we have lasagna! Can’t wait to try it.
It’s great and the combination of the coconut milk reminds me of a Paleo chicken pot pie I make. However, Juli, can you recheck the amounts listed for the sauce ingredients as they appear to be too small. The sauce ran out less than halfway through constructing the lasagna tower. I recommend doubling or even tripling the sauce ingredients. I also added roasted red peppers to the sauce, which were yummy. I love the earlier comment about having to Crossfit in order to slice the squash. It was definitely a WOD, but worth it. Thanks Juli!