This is my favorite vegan recipe. Look, I know it’s not really fancy, but I promise that it tastes really good and it’s not too difficult to make.
I absolutely adore bolognese. That said, I can’t stand spaghetti so I always substitute it with linguine. This bolognese sauce has so much life : you can serve it over pasta or use it in lasagna, cannelloni, ravioli or simply as savory “mince” on toast for breakfast. (Basically, you can use this lentil mixture wherever you would use a traditional tomato/mince mixture).
The mixture freezes very well and you’ll find that cooking this up in bulk batches will give you dozens of “instant” meal options.
Ingredients
1 cup of brown lentils
2 medium tomatoes
1 can whole tomatoes
½ green chili
½ red chilli
1 yellow onion
8 mushrooms
1 vegan veggie stock cube
Crushed garlic
25 g tomato paste
1 teaspoon dried thyme
Fresh basil
Fresh origanum
Vegetable oil for frying
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Method
Cook a cup of brown lentils in a pot without adding any seasoning to the water.
Wash and quarter tomatoes. Slice onion in half. Quarter one half of the onion.
Lay the quartered tomatoes and onion on a greased baking sheet. Drizzle with vegetable oil. Bake in a medium to hot oven for twenty minutes.
While the tomatoes are baking. Slice the mushrooms and dice the other half of the onion. Dice half of a red and green chili.
Add the mushrooms, diced onion, chili and vegetable oil to a saucepan. Sauté mixture until the liquid from the mushrooms has cooked down and they begin to caramelize in the pan. Add 1 ½ tablespoons of crushed garlic to the pan and sauté from a further minute.
Add ¼ cup of water to the mushrooms. Over medium heat, dissolve 1 vegetable stock cube in the pan. Add the cooked brown lentils.
Cool the tray of baked tomatoes/onion and skin the tomatoes.
Add the baked tomatoes/onion, tomato paste and tinned whole tomatoes to a blender. Blend.
Add the tomato mixture from the blender to the pan of mushrooms.
Add dried thyme to the mushroom mixture and simmer over low heat until the flavours blend and the sauce is glossy and thickened.
Bring a pot of salted water to the boil (water must be as salty as the sea). Boil the linguine (or spaghetti) accordingly to the package instructions. (Make sure that your pasta is vegan. Check the ingredients on the package to see that no egg has been added)
Drain the pasta when cooked, reserving 2 tablespoons of the pasta water; add this water to the mushroom/lentil mixture. Add ½ a handful of diced fresh basil and origanum to the sauce and heat through for one minute. Add salt and pepper to taste. Add another ½ handful of finely diced fresh herbs once you remove the sauce from the heat.
Serve tomato mixture over the linguine/spaghetti. Sprinkle with vegan Parmesan if you so desire.
Recipe is my own
All images and videos are shot using my iPad and manipulated using Art Studio and PicCollage
