A Break From Makeup: 400 Calorie Spinach Lasagna Roll Ups

In today's break from makeup I wanted to share these incredibly easy and insanely delicious vegetarian pieces of heaven.

I was looking online for a good lasagna roll up recipe because I live alone and I like cooking meals for one.  I get sick of leftovers really fast so a six serving pan of lasagna sits in my fridge forever and eventually goes bad :(

Anyway I found a decent one that included spinach but as with a lot of these recipes two roll ups were pushing 600+ calories! I usually like to keep each of my meals at 500 calories or less so I decided to try and make a lower calorie version of these cute roll ups.

Recipe screenshot and calorie count thanks to MyFitnessPal!

I decided to take the route of simple and delicious.  I skipped the eggs because I didn't think they were really necessary and also because I'm only making two so I'd have to use like 1/3 of an egg.  I also used cream cheese instead of ricotta cheese because I didn't have any ricotta. I think ricotta is lower cal than cream cheese but the cream cheese tasted so good and unique I'm not sure I'd sacrifice the taste for a few less cals :P

If you aren't a huge sauce person you could probably get away with a bit less than half a cup. I love sauce and still had some left over on my plate.

I also didn't measure out the spinach so I don't think I used quite half a cup but next time I will definitely be adding more.

To make these I first boiled the lasagna noodles then laid them out flat.  I spread the mixture of Italian cheese, cream cheese, and spinach onto each noodle, then carefully rolled them up.  I then dumped a bit of sauce in the bottom of a toaster oven safe bowl, placed the roll ups in seam down, and poured the rest of the sauce on top of them.

I sprinkled the rolls with basil and garlic before popping them in my toaster oven, uncovered. The seasonings  could have also gone inside the mixture but I forgot so they ended up on top.  I baked them at 350 for a bit less than 20 minutes, but if you are using a real oven it may take longer.  Online recipes generally suggested 375 for 25 minutes.

With light versions of the cream cheese, Italian cheese, and sauce this recipe could easily be reduced to only 350 calories or less.

I hope you enjoy this 400 calorie meal as much as I did!