Genuine italian lasagne, but meat and dairy free, from your own kitchen. There aren't many ready-made vegan lasagnes available in the UK... in fact we don't know of any (maybe you do?). If you want lasagne for dinner therefore, you can eat out, or spend an hour or two in the kitchen. Italian chef Gilberto Argini is about to fill this gap in the market with his new Bio-Vegan Lasagne-in-a-box. We've been given an exclusive preview of the new kit (via UPS from Italy!):
A word of caution first: the company makes traditional (meat) lasagne kits too, so before ordering off the internet, make sure your italian is up to scratch (or wait for UK stocks to arrive). If you're looking for gluten-free, that's also coming as an option, but the kit we tested was with durum wheat pasta.
What you get in the box is a jar of organic seitan ragu, a jar of organic soya béchamel, 6 sheets of organic pasta and a disposable oven tray. You do need to supply your own vegan cheese (optional), to sprinkle on top.
We're not used to pre-cooking lasagne sheets, but Gil's instructions recommend we do. This does reduce the oven time to 30 minutes and avoids those hard bits of pasta you sometimes get in homemade lasagne.
One other recommendation is to add two tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil to the seitan ragu before using it. We did this, but we really don't think it's necessary, so you could always skip that step. This ragu is seriously good - the smell and taste is so intense it could transport you to Italy by itself. The seitan within the ragu is minced and makes an excellent meat alternative.
After oiling the base of the oven tray, you layer up the lasagne pasta-ragu-béchamel and repeat until you've built up the lasagne. One thing we've learned from this kit, is that béchamel for lasagne should be quite thin (we googled it, after noticing it was thinner than we usually make it).
To top the lasagne you'll need to supply your own vegan cheese. The recommendation from Gil is Jeezini Santo, but all we had in was Violife slices, so we used those. Grated cheese would obviously be good in this scenario, but few vegan cheeses melt well, so choose wisely. In contrast to Gil, we recommend Mozzarisella (available from Vegancross and elsewhere).
Violife is a great cheese, but it doesn't like a dry oven, even sat on a layer of béchamel. You'll have to excuse the appearance of the lasagne therefore. Invest in some Mozzarisella for best results.
This is without doubt the best lasagne we've ever eaten. Vegan lasagnes tend to fall into two camps - the 'alternative' lasagnes with vegetable fillings, or the strictly traditional meat replacement route. This is firmly along traditional lines and is really successful at it too. The seitan mince is really meat-like, and with a ragu-to-die-for it really tastes great. The béchamel white sauce is less present in the end dish, just lending a creaminess to the pasta.
We found this to be quite an oily lasagne, but as we mentioned about the instructions, you could omit the step where you add more oil if that's going to bother you.
This lasagne serves two. The price is the one thing where we have reservations about the potential success for this kit in the UK. Gil has mentioned some pretty steep figures that only customers of Wholefoods Kensington wouldn't blink at...
We've learned another bit of Italian in reviewing this kit. 'Lasagna' is singular and 'Lasagne' is plural. That usage doesn't seem to have been adopted in the UK, which can cause some confusion with Italian instructions..
We imagine that future stockists of Re Lasagna kits will include the aforementioned Wholefoods Market, and hopefully places like Vegan Cross too.
Verdict: Luscious Lasagne
Veganoo Score: ★★★★★
Re-Lasagna Lasagne Bio-Vegan Nel Bauletto
Re-Lasagna Lasagne Bio-Vegan Nel Bauletto
Footnote: Ingredients
The ingredients were in italian and we haven't got a translation yet.
Well, what can i say? Compliments for this careful review, in particular i want say there were a mistake...don't add oil inside the ragu' and thanks because trought your review i saw that mistake. i really like it and learned something from this post. so after this my lasagna can be more great.
ReplyDeletethanks Veganoo by Gilberto Argini "RE LASAGNA"
Our pleasure Gil. Thanks for pointing out the issue with the oil - you've emailed to say this was left over from the instructions for traditional (meat) lasagne and will be removed from the instructions in the vegan kit.
DeleteI am Ken, a co-owner of HappyCow, and I have known Gilberto for years. I was in Bologna recently, and he made the founder of HappyCow and I a vegan lasagna from his kit with Jeezini vegan cheese. It was delicious! I learned that a traditional Italian lasagna is quite thin in comparison to a common "American-style lasagna". Gilberto is the lasagna master!
ReplyDeleteThanks Ken... Good to have such an authoritative view on this!
DeleteDon't really see the point of this kit. It doesn't provide all the ingredients and the ingredients provided are not unique. A Vegan microwave or frozen lasagne available ready made in the freezer or chilled section would be something to shout about.
ReplyDeleteSo no not impressed with this product, you can easily make a vegan lasagne at home yourself with your own filling (tomatoes, pulses, vegetables etc ) for not much of an expense.
You won't be alone with those views. The way we see it though, the products are unique - where else would you find soya béchamel in a jar, or seitan ragu in a jar? The ragu is exceptionally good too. Even pre-cooking the lasagne sheets (5 mins), the lasagne is in the oven in 15 minutes, which means from store cupboard (not fridge) to table in 45 minutes. Ideal for unexpected guests. Sure you can cook your own, but this has a convenience niche.
DeleteHi. The Relasagna kit allows for a much fresher/tastier lasagna than you could buy as a pre-made lasagna, and this is an authentic product from Bologna, Italy - a place that has always been known for fine Italian cuisine. Gilberto has chosen top-quality vegan ingredients for the lasagna so that you can practically replicate what he makes in his restaurant.
ReplyDelete