Hey it's Nisha and welcome back to
another video. today I'm going to show
you how to make a vegetable lasagna in
the Instant Pot. this is a recipe for my
brand new cookbook - The Vegan Instant Pot Cookbook. You can pre-order your copy
before June 18th and get some free bonus
content. and if you're seeing this video
after June 18th you can still order your
copy. you can find it on Amazon or
wherever books are sold. and today I'm
going to show you just exactly how
you're gonna make this lasagna. and I'm
going to start by chopping all the
vegetables. the first part of this recipe
is to chop up some onion and garlic
which will flavor everything, and then
I'll chop up some mushrooms, red bell
pepper and zucchini and those will be
the vegetables that go into the filling.
then I'll make a homemade vegan cheese 
spread. The easiest way to cut an onion
is to slice it vertically and then
you're gonna take your knife and run it
this way and then it'll chop into
individual little pieces. I find this is
the easiest way to cut it. for the
vegetable filling, I'm using a red bell
pepper, zucchini and some mushrooms but if you don't like mushrooms or zucchini,
you can easily swap in your favorite
vegetable.
for these mushrooms I'm just going to
rub off some of the dirt with a paper
towel. and for all of these vegetables
the exact measurements are going to be
in the recipe, which you can find in my
cookbook but I've also shared this
recipe from my book for free on my blog
at RainbowPlantLife.com. And now I'm
going to chop up these mushrooms. again, a fine chop will work well. for my vegan
lasagna I'm going to make a homemade
tofu cheese. it's incredibly simple. we're
just gonna put some of these ingredients
into a food processor for about 30
seconds or a minute and everything will
be done. but of course if you want to
save a little more time and effort you
can use store-bought vegan cheese. it's
up to you. so the first step is I've got
this block of extra firm tofu and tofu
is really watery so you want to make
sure you drain all the excess water. I
wrap it in some paper towels. you don't
have to press it like you would
traditionally for like a full 20 or 30
minutes, but make sure you get out all
the water. I've already got out most of
the water in here. I'm using paper towels
or if you have clean kitchen towels you
can use those as well. and I'm just gonna
directly crumble the tofu into the food
processor. it's all gonna blend up so you
don't need to do it any specific way. for
the rest of the ingredients in this
cheese, we have nutritional yeast, which
as you may know is a vegan superstar
ingredient. it gives this a very cheesy
mouthfeel and a lot of umami flavor. also
got some garlic because garlic adds
flavor to everything. and this is just
roughly chopped garlic - it's all gonna
get pureed in here so no need to mince
it. this is a basil ricotta so I've got
some fresh basil leaves here. no
need to chop these. if you want to, you
can, but I'm just going
add them whole right into the food
processor. also got some miso paste. miso
paste is another vegan superstar
ingredient. it's gonna add that rich
umami flavor and I've got two
tablespoons here. also adding some lemon
zest to give this a bright fresh flavor
and then I'll also add some lemon juice
at the end. I'm also adding some onion
powder for a little bit of that onion
kick and then some salt and pepper as
well. now for the lemon juice. I don't
have a juicer or reamer today so I'm
just going to squeeze it directly of my
fingers which will pick up the seeds so
they don't go into the cheese. all right
we've got everything in the food
processor and I'm just gonna process it
for like 30 seconds until it starts to
come together and it's creamy.
now that we've got our veggies prepped
I'm going to saute them in the Instant Pot.
Yu can saute them on the stove in a
skillet if you prefer. either way will
work out just great. and I'll season it
with some salt and pepper as well.
I've got the Saute setting on the Instant Pot and I'm gonna heat up some olive oil.
let it heat up for about a minute or two
and then you'll add the veggies. I'm
gonna cook the onion first for a few
minutes until it gets a little bit soft,
and then I'll add the rest of the
vegetables. now I'm going to add the rest
of those vegetables - the zucchini, the red
bell pepper and mushrooms, as well as the garlic.
I've got some freshly chopped basil here - 
it's gonna add a little bit of extra
flavor and freshness and I'll add some
salt and pepper. and we'll take this off
the heat.
Now I'm going to assemble the lasagna
and the first step is to take some
marinara sauce. you can use any brand you like or homemade, and I'm going to add it
to a measuring cup and add some water to it. The reason I water out the marinara
sauce is to make sure that it's thin
enough to coat all of the noodles. I'm
using no-boil noodles so you want to
ensure that they're evenly coated with
the marinara and you don't want it to be
too thick or chunky or else the noodles
won't cook fully through.
I'm going to start off by pouring about
1/2 cup of marinara sauce into the
bottom of a 7 inch springform pan. A 7
inch pan is going to be small enough to
fit into a 6 quart Instant Pot and this
has that clasp here, so it'll be really
easy to assemble as well as take out
from the Instant Pot. So I've got these
no-boil lasagna noodles. again you don't
have to cook the noodles before you put
them in here but you do want to make
sure they're covered evenly in all of
the sauce. otherwise they won't cook
through. and because this is a circular
pan, not a rectangular pan where I can
just lay them flat, I'm actually going to break
them up into little pieces it's gonna
fit around there like a mosaic. after you
add the first layer of lasagna noodles
you're gonna add more of this marinara
sauce and then you'll add the cheese the
vegetables. and you'll repeat the layers.
now I've got this basil ricotta that we
made earlier. I'm going to use about a
third of this on top of the sauce. It can be
a little tricky to spread so using a
silicon spatula will help.
I'm going to add this vegetable filling
directly on top of the basil ricotta.
you'll use about half here and half at
the next step. the other vegetable I'm
using is some baby spinach, just you know because greens are good for you. and I'm
going to put those directly on top of
the cooked vegetables.
And our final step is to finish it with
the last of the tofu ricotta. this can be
a bit of a messy process. it's fine if it
doesn't look perfect. I promise it will
taste good. our lasagna is assembled so
now I'm going to prepare the Instant Pot.
This is what is called "pot in pot
cooking"- where you cook a pot inside of
another pot. in order to do this you
always have to put some water in the
bottom of the inner pot of the Instant Pot, so I'm going to pour in one and a
half cups of water here.
And then you usually put this pot on top of
this steamer rack. this is the steamer
rack, or it's also called a trivet, that
comes with the Instant Pot. it has these
handy handles, but to make it even easier
to remove I've made a sling. I'm just using
some heavy-duty aluminum foil. I talk
about exactly how to do this in my
cookbook, but it's very simple to do this.
I'm going to lay the foil sling flat
here. then I'm gonna put the steamer rack
here and then I will put the lasagna pot
directly on here. and then I'm going to
take another piece of foil that I've
lightly sprayed with cooking spray or
olive oil and put it down here just to
prevent it from sticking.
I've also wrapped the bottom in foil
just because I'm a little paranoid and
don't want to have any surprise leaks. 
and then I'm gonna grab these handles
and the foil sling and directly transfer
it right into inner pot just like this.
These handles are gonna come in handy
when you're gonna remove this from the
pot - it'll make it a lot easier. secure
the lid and then we're gonna pressure
cook it at high pressure for 20 minutes. 
if you have an older Instant Pot, the
pressure cook setting is just the manual
setting.
The lasagna is done as is, but if you
want it to be extra cheesy like I like
it, I'm going to add a little bit of
extra vegan mozzarella just on top. it's
a totally optional step but it does get
nice and browned under your broiler so
just something to think about.
Okay the lasagna has been taken out of
the broiler. again totally optional but
it does get the vegan cheese a little
bit browned on top which is nice.
And now it's time to dig in!
This lasagna is so creamy. I'm getting
those notes from the basil so it's got
some freshness. getting some lemon zest
and lemon juice in there, so it nicely
balances the richness of the tofu
ricotta. and it's got this really nice
hearty tomato flavor that I love about
lasagna.
I hope you enjoyed this recipe for vegetable lasagna in the Instant Pot. Again you can preorder my cookbook
before June 18th and get yourself some
exciting free bonus content. instructions
on how to do that are in the description
box below. And if it's after June 18th,
you can still order my cookbook, and
links for that are also below. Thanks so
much for watching and I'll see you in
the next video.
