One of the biggest lessons learned from our vegetable garden this year is that we are never going to be as big a fan of salad greens as I want us to be. Another big lesson? Squirrels are crafty little bastards that will get any tomato that they want, regardless of how hard you try to keep them away.

I pulled out three of the four arugula plants I planted. We just couldn’t keep up! I plucked every single leaf off of those three huge plants and made an extra large batch of arugula pesto. With 2 quart-sized freezer bags of arugula pesto ice cubes, I set out to make use of our early summer jackpot.

There’s almost nothing about lasagna that speaks to me during the months that have an average temperature of 98 – there’s lots of simmering, boiling, sauteing, and baking. Sounds… hot. But with four boxes of lasagna noodles in the pantry (do you see a pattern?), I was determined to at least start cleaning out some of the “inventory.”

I settled on lasagna rolls to use up some leftover shredded chicken and some of that arugula pesto. And half a box of lasagna noodles. A simple filling of arugula pesto, ricotta cheese, and chicken wrapped up in a lasagna noodle. Dinner!

If you’re interested, this is the recipe I used for the pesto – I simply replaced the basil with arugula. Normally, I would have used half basil and half arugula but, um, I kinda had a little bit of arugula I needed to use.

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Chicken Pesto Lasagna Rolls

Fresh pesto and chicken make a lighter lasagna, perfect for summer.

Ingredients

• 1 Tbsp butter
• 1 Tbsp flour
• 1 cup milk
• Salt
• Pepper
• 1 cup shredded chicken
• 1 15 oz container of ricotta cheese (I used low-fat)
• 1/2 cup homemade or store-bought pesto sauce
• 6 lasagna noodles, cooked and drained
• 1 cup of your favorite chunky marinara sauce, divided
• 1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese, divided

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 375.
2. Melt butter over medium-high heat.
3. Add flour and stir until mixed. Let cook for a minute.
4. Stream in the milk, whisking until completely smooth.
5. Add salt and pepper, and then cook until thickened.
6. Place 1/4 cup of white sauce in the bottom of an 8x8 pan.
7. In a bowl, stir together the chicken, ricotta, 1/4 cup mozzarella, pesto, salt, and pepper.
8. Spread ~1/3 cup of the ricotta mixture over each lasagna noodle and roll up. Place the roll in the prepared pan.
9. Repeat for the remaining noodles.
10. Spoon the remaining white sauce over the lasagna rolls.
11. Spoon the red sauce over the lasagna rolls and top with remaining mozzarella cheese.
12. Bake for ~30 minutes, until hot, bubble, and the cheese begins to brown.

Notes

Yields: 6 servings

Adapted from Sargento

Estimated time: 45 minutes

This post was sponsored by Sargento Cheese. I was compensated for the ingredients used and my time. As always, all opinions are expressed are ours.