Slow-Cooker Lasagna

I love pasta! All kinds of pasta cooked all kinds of ways. When I was a kid one of my favorite snacks was just a bowl of cold plain elbow macaroni sprinkled with just a bit of salt. Yummy! Of course now that I am Diabetic I have to limit my cravings but that still does not stop me from making pasta dishes and trying out new ones.

I got this recipe from one of my mailing lists that I belong to and of course I had to tweak it to see if I could make it healthier. Crock Pot recipes are great as I can just assemble the ingredients, turn it on and forget it for a few hours.

For the lasagna noodles I used whole wheat oven ready noodles. These are great lasagna noodles I found at Target. It's made by their own food brand, Archer Farms. You don't have to pre-cook them and they taste great. You can't even tell they are whole wheat. You don't have to use the oven ready type of noodles to make this so any kind of lasagna will be fine.

For the marinara sauce I use Trader Joe's Organic Marinara Sauce. It's low fat and no salt added so very low in sodium. Plus it tastes great!

SLOW-COOKER LASAGNA

1 lb. ground turkey
1 medium onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 C water
1 8 oz. can tomato sauce - no salt added
1 6 oz. can tomato paste
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. oregano
8 oz. uncooked lasagna noodles; broken up
1 lb mozzarella cheese, shredded
2 15 oz. containers low fat or fat free ricotta cheese
1/4 C egg substitute
1 26 oz jar marinara sauce

Brown the turkey, onion and garlic over medium heat in a large skillet sprayed with cooking spray until meat isn't pink any longer.

Add the tomato sauce, tomato paste, marinara sauce, water, salt and oregano, mix well until heated through. Spread one-quarter of the meat sauce in an ungreased crock pot; arrange one third of the noodles over the meat. Combine the cheeses and the egg substitute and arrange one third of the cheese mixture over the noodles.

Repeat these layers two more times; top with the remaining meat sauce. Cover and cook 4 to 5 hours on low heat or until noodles are tender.