Vegan Bolognese

This Vegan Bolognese sauce is a classic vegetable plant sauce. It uses a variety of vegetables, lots of fresh herbs, mushrooms and lentils to open a ton of flavor. The texture of the sauce is thick and fat enough to coat whatever pasta you like.

Healthy Vegan Bolognese Sauce in Italian Pasta

Mushrooms included in red sauce (?)
I grew up eating two main types of red pasta sauce. If my parents want this assignment, they will make a large pot of meat bolognese with mushrooms. Most of it will freeze and we can take it out for several meals during the next month. However, if they are in an emergency, we almost always have a bottle of Classico brand sauce with mushrooms.

Although it may not be part of the classic bolognese recipe, mushrooms always taste right in the sauce. I realized this at the age of ten when I was invited to go camping with several Scouts for one night in the forest. The host team was friendly enough to serve us spaghetti for dinner. Being a young food critic like me, I call them with their Ragu brand sauce, which feels tasteless to me. (I did not understand the rudeness of my actual statement until my father told me later. It was very embarrassing.) I did not know that it was a lack of mushrooms at the time, but now I can really see how I can find a bland sauce without mushrooms.

Healthy ingredients for vegetarian meat bolognese sauce

Developing Vegan Bolognese
When I came up with this recipe, there were several different goals. The first is to make a delicious tomato-based sauce with the right consistency, with emphasis on delicious words. If it doesn't taste good, it's not worth sharing. I also want to use a variety of vegetables to make especially nutritious sauces. And the sauce needs mushrooms, because of the important lessons I learned as a child.

With these goals in mind, I examined several recipes, including the omnivorous place of Italian cooking and the vegan from Serious Eats. I got some ideas about how simple the sauce was from the first, and how complicated it was from the first. I am looking for something in between.

Ingredients

Vegetables

• 2 Tablespoons olive oil
• 2 cloves garlic minced
• 1/2 onion minced or finely fined
• 1 rib celery orced finely
• 1 medium carrot minced or diced finely
• 1/2 pound of white or brown mushrooms; minced or diced finely
• 1/4 large eggplant peeled and minced or finely fined

Herbs

• 2 Tablespoons fresh parsley chopped finely
• 2 Tablespoons of fresh basil chopped finely
• 1 Tablespoon fresh sage chopped finely
• 1 teaspoon of fresh thyme leaves is chopped finely

Sauce

• 1/4 cup white wine
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 Tablespoon miso
• 4 Tablespoons tomato paste
• 1/4 cup shelled hemp hearts
• 1 vegetable stock cup
• 15 oz canned tomato sauce
• 1 15-oz lentils can
• 1 Tablespoon soy sauce
• 1/4 cup unsweetened unflavored plant milk
• Optional Garnishes
• Parsley basil, and sage leaves, chopped finely
• Grated parmesan cheese vegan
• Nutritional yeast

Instructions

Heat olive oil in a medium saucepan or Dutch oven over medium heat. When the oil is hot, add the garlic, onion, carrot, celery, and eggplant. Saute for 3 minutes, stirring continuously. Add the mushrooms, continue to stir for another 4 minutes. Add the chopped herbs and cook for 3 minutes, still stirring.

Add the wine and bay leaf and scrape up any bits stuck on the bottom of the pot. Cook and stir for 5 minutes, until the wine has been evaporated.

Add the tomato paste, miso, and hemp hearts. Cook and stir for 3 minutes. Add the vegetable stock, lentils, tomato sauce, soy sauce, and plant milk, again scraping any stuck bits from the bottom of the pot. When it comes to the simmer, it will reduce the heat and cover the saucepan. Cook at least for another 20 minutes, up to 40 minutes to develop the flavor.

Serve sauce over pasta with any of the optional garnishes.

Notes

If you have any doubt about the quantity, make a double batch. It's easy to eat a lot of this sauce.

The vegetables can be processed into a food processor to save time. Alternatively, you can just slice the vegetables and achieve a similar flavor, though the texture will be quite different from the intended meaty bolognese texture.

You can add slightly more olive oil and mushroom than called for, and it will enhance the flavor of the sauce.

You can use red wine instead of white wine.

The heart can be skipped. They add substance and nutrition to the sauce but are not essential.
The lentils don't need to be canned. You can use a pre-cooked lentils instead. The amount corresponds to 1.5-2 cups

Subscribe to receive free email updates: