Polenta is one of my favorite foods. I mainly use it in place of pasta for dishes like my Polenta with Homemade Marinara Sauce, Pine Nuts, and Parmesan. It’s delicious, hearty, and healthy.

But I really need to branch out and show my love of polenta in new ways. So this weekend I made Polenta Lasagna for the first, and definitely not the last, time. In fact, I can see myself making this dish on a regular basis for the rest of my life. My husband loved it, the leftovers are great, and it’s filling but not fatty.

I started with a Cooking Light recipe from their October 2005 recipe. It called for polenta in a tube (gross!) and meatless fat-free sausage (double gross!). So, I omitted the meat-ish element of the dish. And I made the polenta from scratch, using Giada’s recipe, letting it cool and mold into a baking pan so that it could easily be placed in layers for the lasagna. In the future, I plan to use Giada’s Simple Tomato Sauce, but this first time I used a canned organic brand called Seeds of Change. The homemade marinara sauce could only make the lasagna better.

This is the kind of recipe that even I, a slave to written instructions, wouldn’t be scared to improvise on. Feel free to do the same based on what you have on hand. Here’s what I did:

Polenta Lasagna

1 (26-ounce) jar marinara sauce, divided
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 cup finely chopped onion
1/2 cup chopped bell pepper (any color)
1 cup chopped mushrooms
1/2 cup chopped zucchini
1/2 cup chopped broccoli
2 garlic cloves, minced
fresh basil, chopped
16-20 ounces of freshly made polenta
1/2 cup (2 ounces) preshredded part-skim mozzarella cheese
1/4 - 1/2 cup of toasted pine nuts
salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 350°.

Spoon 1/2 cup marinara sauce into an 8-inch square baking dish to cover bottom, and set aside.

Heat oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add onion and bell pepper; sauté 4 minutes or until tender. Add mushrooms, zucchini, broccoli, and garlic; sauté 2 minutes or until mushrooms are tender, stirring frequently. Add remaining marinara sauce; reduce heat, and simmer 10 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste. Add chopped basil.

Arrange a layer of polenta slices over marinara in baking dish, and top evenly with half of vegetable mixture. Sprinkle 1/4 cup of cheese over vegetable mixture; arrange remaining polenta over cheese. Top polenta with the remaining vegetable mixture, and sprinkle with remaining 1/4 cup cheese.

Cover and bake at 350° for 30 minutes. Uncover and bake an additional 15 minutes or until bubbly. Let stand 5 minutes before serving. Sprinkle each serving with some toasted pine nuts and serve.

Yield: 6 servings (serving size: 1 piece)