I am not a vegetarian, but like many who are concerned about their health—especially heart health—I’ve been incorporating more plant protein and reducing my animal protein intake. I cook mostly vegetarian meals, and my family tends to eat whatever I serve. Sometimes my daughter asks if I’m considering becoming a vegetarian. While I’m not ready to give up eggs, meat, and fish completely, I do enjoy plant-based meals. And today I’m excited to share Mushroom Bolognese which is a vegan twist on an Italian classic.
This recipe was originally posted in January 2013. I still make this, and it is still just as delicious so thought to upload a video and update the photos. You won’t regret giving this recipe a try! Oh yes, I did a make slight change. My old recipe has milk but then I stopped using because it didn’t freeze well.
Bolognese is a meat and tomato-based sauce originally from Bologna, Italy. It is thought to have originated sometime during the late 18th century and was served with tagliatelle pasta. Of course, there is no single recipe for Bolognese sauce but some of the basic ingredients remain the same such as onions, beef, tomatoes, milk, and wine. For this pasta sauce, mushrooms, walnuts, carrot, celery, tomatoes, and garlic form the aromatic base. I chose to use mixed mushrooms. They enhance the flavor they bring to the dish. Walnuts add a great taste, and texture, and mimic ground meat. Mushrooms, walnuts, and eggplant are my favorite ingredients to use as a meat replacement, in so many recipes. (You can also check out my vegan meatballs)!
Making the Bolognese The sauce-making process is pretty simple. Start by coarsely chopping the mushrooms in a food processor bowl—Sauté in a wide a pan till all the moisture evaporates. The mushrooms are going to reduce in volume as they cook. While that is happening coarsely chop the toasted walnuts and the vegetables separately. Set them aside. Transfer the cooked mushrooms with the walnuts. Next, sauté the coarsely chopped vegetables with thyme sprigs. Next, once the vegetables are soft, add the mushrooms and walnuts back into the pan. Add the crushed tomatoes to the pot with some salt and let them cook till you get the right consistency. The result is a rich, flavorful sauce that retains all the hearty goodness of the original, with no sacrifice in taste. The key is allowing the sauce to simmer long enough for the flavors to meld and reach their full potential!
This is a versatile sauce, and making extra gives you a great base for future meals. It’s much quicker to prepare than a traditional beef Bolognese, but still packs a punch of flavor. My daughter and husband, who have tasted the original beef Bolognese, both agree that my vegan version is just as flavorful.
I’ve never seen thicker gluten-free pasta shapes like pappardelle or tagliatelle, which the traditional recipe calls for. So, I served with regular gluten free spaghetti.
A rich, flavorful vegan Bolognese sauce that retains all the hearty goodness of the original, with no sacrifice in taste.
Ingredients
- 1 pound mushrooms, trimmed and quartered ( I used cremini, shitake and white )
- 1 cup toasted walnuts,
- 1 yellow onion, quartered
- 1 medium carrot & 1 medium stalk celery, roughly cut into pieces that your food processor can process
- 4 tablespoons olive oil, divided
- 1 1/2 tsp salt, divided
- 1 tsp crushed red chilies
- 1/4 cup tomato paste
- 1 14 oz can of crushed tomatoes
- 1 cup (+) vegetable stock
- 3-4 fresh thyme sprigs or ( any dry herbs that you prefer)
- Grated Parmesan or grana padano or a Vegan Cheese to keep the recipe completely Vegan
- Gluten Free pasta to serve
Instructions
- Add toasted walnuts to a food processor bowl; pulse until finely chopped. Transfer to a medium bowl.
- Pulse mushrooms in a food processor until finely chopped (you can do in 2 batches).
- Transfer to a bowl. Add onion, carrot, and celery to food processor; process until very finely chopped.
- Heat 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high. Add chopped mushrooms in an even layer; cook, undisturbed, until browned in spots, about 8-10 minutes.
- Season with 1/2 teaspoon salt, toss, and cook until most of the liquid evaporates. Transfer to bowl with walnuts.
- Reduce heat to medium. Add remaining 2 tablespoons oil to skillet. Stir in onion mixture and 1/2 tsp salt and 3-5 fresh thyme sprigs ; cook, stirring often, until mixture is golden and almost dry, 8-10 minutes. Stir in mushrooms and walnuts. Add crushed tomatoes, vegetable stock, remaining salt, and crushed red chilies. cook, stirring, until combined, about 5 minutes. Add tomato paste, simmer over medium low, stirring once or twice, until sauce is very thick, 25-30 minutes.
- Cook pasta according to package directions.
- Toss pasta with desired amount of sauce. Serve garnished with grated parmesan or grana padano cheese. Place any remaining sauce in an airtight container; refrigerate for up to 3 days or freeze for up to 3 months.
Notes
I cooked two portions of pasta and put the remaining Bolognese in freezer.
Divya Prakash
Nice and delicious vegetarian makeover to this traditional Italian spagetti.. Looks yum!!
Choc Chip Uru
I love your photos my friend, this looks very tasty 🙂
Cheers
Choc Chip Uru
Asmita
This looks so flavorful! I would love to eat this!
yummychunklet
What a delicious bolognese!
Liz
I would be quite satisfied with your delicious mushroom pasta! It sounds amazing!!! I wouldn’t miss the meat at all 🙂
Blackswan
Bolognese always remind me of my stay in Japan. Studied there for a few mths & my classmate used to cook this for us……….
Balvinder
Your classmates probably would be Italian or loves Italian food.
Dedy Oktavianus Pardede
is there any gluten free spaghetti available ?
i think some chopped soy based protein “meat” will be great to the spaghetti sauce…
Balvinder
There is variety of gluten free pasta available in the market. I like your suggestion of adding soy protein o the sauce. Next time for sure 🙂
Sridevi Ravi
I was tired of adding store bought pasta sauce and looking for an alternative. This is great! What sort of pasta do you suggest would go with the bolognese?
Balvinder
I more often use pasta sauce for single meals but this is good and quick to feed a crowd. Any firmer pasta such as rigatoni, penne,tagliatelle would be good.
Soni
Oh this looks wonderful!I love mushrooms and I’m sure I will love this recipe 🙂 Great to see a vegetarian version of the Bolognese sauce 🙂
Deepti
Wonderful version of vegetarian spaghetti.. I love mushroom with anything!
ATasteOfMadness
Wow, this looks great! Where were you when I was a vegetarian! This almost makes me want to be vegetarian again 🙂
anne
Bal , you can never go wrong with pasta 😀 I love to add milk in my pasta sauce as well . Next time , I’ll make a big batch of pasta sauce and keep some for future use 😉
Angie@Angie's Recipes
I have been thinking to make some lentil Bolognaise sauce, but now I might use mushrooms instead. Looks really tasty.
Nava Krishnan
Nice vegetarian version of spaghetti. I also discovered something new you added, that being the unsweetened almond with the opt for milk too. We are not vegetarians but we do balance our meal between both types, the veg and non-veg.
angiesrecipes
Well, I will NEVER be a vegetarian, let alone a vegan, which is one of the unhealthiest diets in the world…just better than SAD. On the contrary, I am trying to be a 100% carnivore…the older we get, the more meat we need. However, I do enjoy some vegetables..mushrooms are one of them.