This is a recipe for those days when you want comfort food without the stodge of winter. It’s a lasagne, but it’s meat-free and made light with ricotta. It’s the sort of dish where you can have a second helping without collapsing in a food coma.

This spinach and ricotta lasagne is so good it’s in danger of toppling my favourite springtime asparagus version from its throne. I’ll be making it on repeat. Some recipes exclude tomatoes but I’ve used them here because I think they provide the touch of acidity needed to stop the whole thing tasting bland. You can pre-make the tomato sauce if you want less to do on the day you eat.

The lasagne freezes well, too, so it’s worth making double. Just defrost in the fridge overnight and bring it to room temperature before cooking. If you’re in a hurry and want to cook from frozen, reduce the oven temperature to 180C/160 fan and cook for an extra 20 minutes or until heated through. Dress a fresh green salad towards the end of  the resting time and you’ve got supper sorted.

One final suggestion: if you’re using the sort of lasagne sheets that don’t need pre-cooking, make the béchamel a little looser, as it sucks up more sauce. But please don’t swamp the lasagne in any of the sauces … as with much Italian cooking, less is more.

You’ll need a deep dish roughly 27cm x 20cm.