Slow cooker turkey, veggie and feta lasagna
This slow cooker lasagna is the perfect healthy meal to come home to after a busy summer day! It’s loaded with turkey, veggies and feta, which makes it a lighter, summery take on traditional lasagna. Bonus: no noodle boiling!
Hi guys! How’s your morning going?
It’s been a great one over here. I even woke up early to take the pups for a walk! It was nice to get some fresh air before beginning the morning routine.
Spin last night was amazeballs. Loving the new gym (where I teach spin and Zumba), and they recently installed heart rate screens in the spin and cardio rooms. A few participants were wearing them last night, and one even burned 1,000 calories during class! I’m a huge fan of the heart rate screens -it’s a great way to assess how hard the group is working and if I need to scale anything back or push it up- and appreciate the fact that it’s optional. If it works for you, you can use it; if not, NBD. The spin list included “Dude Looks Like a Lady” as a nod to Mrs. Doubtfire, and then I came home to an awesome dinner.
Ready to dig into the slow cooker:
Waiting inside was a hearty turkey lasagna. The house smelled glorious, but the best part was remember the fact that no noodles were boiled in the cooking process.
I’ve seen quite a few slow cooker lasagna recipes on Pinterest and was instantly intrigued. I loathe boiling noodles. This is 100% due to the fact that they stick together (even after drizzling some olive oil on top), and I usually seem to burn myself while fishing them out of the colander. It’s a normal occurrence in our kitchen to hear the F-word (which has been turned to Frankfurt since little parrot ears are around) and see a lasagna noodle fly to the ground. Totally normal.
I’m now officially obsessed with slow cooker lasagna. Never going back.
Here are some of the ingredients I used in the filling:
+ some organic turkey sausage (more flavor than regular ground turkey) and fresh basil.
I was a little skeptical about the noodles cooking in the slow cooker. (Flashback to when I thought you could cook rice in there. Surprise: it didn’t turn out well.) BUT, they did! They were pleasantly al dente, not mushy in the least. A few noodles did not cook completely, but for the most part they did surprisingly well. If you want to ensure fully-cooked noodles, I’d suggest the no-boil brand, though I have yet to see a GF variety.
Here’s the recipe breakdown if you’d like to give it a whirl:
Slow Cooker Lasagna with Turkey, Veggies and Feta
Ingredients
- 2 zucchini, sliced
- 1 onion, chopped
- 2 cloves garlic, chopped
- olive oil
- 1lb turkey sausage
- 2 jar marinara sauce
- 1 bag spinach
- 1 container feta
- 1 package lasagna noodles (no boil noodles are recommended)
- a few sprigs of basil, chopped
- salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- Sauté zucchini, onion and garlic in olive oil with salt and pepper.
- After about 5 minutes, add turkey sausage, and brown completely.
- In the slow cooker, add marinara sauce, 3 noodles and 1/2 of the turkey/veggie mixture
- Next cover that with fresh spinach and crumbled feta.
- The final layer is noodles, sauce and feta on top
- Set on low for 4 hours
- Top with fresh basil and feast!
Please let me know if you give it a try <3 Have a wonderful morning!
Other Slow Cooker Meals:
Slow cooker turkey meatballs
PRO meals: Slow Cooker Chicken Cacciatore
Slow cooker butter chicken (and vegan option!)
Slow cooker chicken coconut curry
xoxo
Gina
53 Comments
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A heart rate screen would be so awesome so you could see if you were pushing yourself hard enough. What great motivation!
woooww this sounds so good. can’t wait to make it!
Oh, this does sound amazing. We hate cooking noodles too – either not done enough or over-done. This sounds right up our alley – definitely trying, thanks!
Yum, this looks great! I always worried about slow cooker lasagna that the noodles would turn out TOO mushy. I’ll give your method a try soon!
I love the addition of fresh spinach and feta. It looks really good – very much a comfort meal!
I really should make use out of my slow cooker. I was on a kick for a while making a lot of Mexican dishes, but never anything with pasta. Don’t you love the energy of fun even group fitness classes? I teach a Monday evening BODYATTACK class and it’s nearly always the highlight of my week. Have a great day!
yum! i def need more slow cooker meals now that i’m back at work!
I’ve got to try this out! I love having new slow cooker recipes to add to the meal rotation 🙂
This looks marvy. I’m going to stash it away for when the humidity level drops below 99% — it sounds like the perfect healthier comfort food! Crockpots are one of man’s best inventions since cooking itself.
i would love to see a heart rate screen in spin class!
Wow I am so trying this! Yum!
Yum! I cant believe you can make lasagna in a crock pot!
Yum! This would be my kind of way to make a lasagna. Put it in the slow cooker and walk away. haha
That lasagna looks amazing! I will have to try this out ASAP!
Crockpot is a brilliant idea for making lasagna or any pasta for that matter! I’m a huge fan of wearing heart monitors. Too many people rely on the machines and they are mostly inaccurate.
I live in San Diego! What gym are you teaching at?
i teach at a few different places. if you want to email me, i’d be happy to send along the info!
Mmmmm!! I love lasagna! Thanks for sharing this! I don’t use my slow cooker enough and I think this will be a great reason to use it again!
This looks amazing and is the answer to my prayers! I just got a slow-cooker and I’ve been digging around to find good slow-cooker recipes. Quick question: where did you pick up the brown rice lasagna noodles? I have a Sprouts nearby but my gut tells me a Whole Foods trip might be necessary for those bad boys 😉
Can’t wait to try this! It’s like you can read my mind when I’m in a recipe rut, I check the blog and there’s an awesome recipe right there 🙂 Thank you and have a great day.
Looks sooo good – will be making this one for sure! thanks!
Do you buy the organic turkey sausage at TJs? I’m on the hunt for some now!
Thanks!
whole foods has it; in the frozen meat section
Sorry to bother you about this again, but I couldn’t find it in WF. What is the brand you bought?
TIA!
i don’t remember :/ it was in the frozen meat section in a tube, next to the regular organic ground turkey
I love that this version of lasagna has just feta instead of the traditional ricotta and mozzarella. Sometimes it gets a bit too cheesy for my family. I’m with you 110% on any recipe that I don’t have to boil noodles or pasta ahead!!! Thanks for the recipe 🙂
Ohhh my! I’ve never been brave enough to make homemade lasagna, but if I can make it in the slow cooker…done!
I’ve been seeing crockpot lasagna recipes pop up and they sound so cool- I had no idea you could make that in a slow cooker! I’m glad you tried yours with GF noodles and they worked! It seems that so often brown rice noodles just fall apart! And I love that it would be easy to leave out the cheese for a dairy-free dish! Thanks for the inspiration, I can’t wait to give it a try!
I love this idea of slow cooker lasagna – I have never heard of such a thing. Perfect for slow-cooker season which is fast-approaching (aka Fall!).
I really do need to use my slow cooker more! I do like those brown rice noodles – they almost taste like traditional pasta!
I always thought I didn’t like lasagna because I don’t like ricotta… this is a HUGE game changer!
this looks so good! and so easy! Pinning 🙂
Just a tip, if you DO have to boil the noodles, the key to them not sticking/not burning yourself is to run cool water over them before you layer your lasagna. They don’t have to be hot when you put them in the pan because you’re going to bake it anyway 🙂
smart girl. i will def do that next time. thank you!
Lasagna is in the crockpot right now. Can’t wait. 🙂
That looks and sounds amazing. Great healthy option for an Italian favorite. I will be trying it out!
That looks amazing! Here’s a tip from when I was running a catering business…you don’t have to boil the noodles at all..just make the lasagna with a little more sauce on top of each layer of noodles and cook it a little longer until a knife slides through…they cook in the sauce.
Making this today! Yuuuum
let me know how it turns out!
I made this and it was very tasty. My husband loved it. I think I might omit the zucchini next time. It was a tad watery and I think the zucchini may have been the culprit.
ohhh, smart girl! ours wasn’t too watery but i could see how that would happen
I missed this recipe because it was posted the day I gave birth to my daughter–I just saw it on your 30 day cheat sheet and now it’s going on my meal plan for next week! I can’t wait to try this!
amazing! let me know how you like it 🙂 congrats to you, too!
The absolute best recipe I’ve made of yours. no questions asked. Excellent recipe!! I made this exactly as you wrote out except used whole wheat no-boil noodles. I’ll make this again and my husband ate double that night which is rare.
So.so.so. good.
Keep the slow cooker recipes coming!
that is so, so awesome! happy to hear you and your husband liked it! 🙂
will definitely work on more slow cooker recipes to share; they’re my fave.
have a great night!!
xoxo
Made this last night for dinner. It was AMAZING!!! We will definitely make this again. Thank you for the recipe!
awesome!! happy to hear you liked it! 🙂
I needed some new dinner inspiration today and I came across this recipe. I have tried slow cooker lasagna one other time a few years ago. It didn’t turn out well at all. Mush city. But you’ve convinced me to try, try again. I’m making it this weekend so I will let you know how it turns out! 🙂
ohhh please let me know what you think!
Hey Gina, do you think you could substitute ground turkey instead?
thanks!
Hey Gina – This was incredible – I could eat it every day and am concerned it’s so good I might overdo it ?? How many portions do you think this would be?
i’m so happy you liked it! it’s one of my favorite meals 🙂 i think it’s about 8 portions. but when i’m hungry, it’s more like 6 😉
This sounds amazing! I really want to use my slow cooker more and I love the idea of coming home to lasagne ready to go after work. A funny note: I’m from the UK and I don’t know anyone here that would boil the lasagne sheets before using them; if I make a lasagne, I just layer everything, put the pasta in dry and then bake for about 40 minutes and it comes out perfect. I love seeing little cultural differences like this, I’ve learnt so much since I started reading blogs haha 🙂