Healthy Bolognese in a Hurry

This hearty and traditionally meaty Bolognese sauce is so rich and packed with flavor… it just made to nourish. It’s amazing how simple fresh ingredients and subtlety can impart so much.

Read the research below to learn the science behind each ingredient and why it was selected, or just jump to the recipe!

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Recipe Overview

NOTE: 1.5 cups of cooked lentils in not included in the cooking time. Canned insulted lentils will work just fine.

The Menu

Pair the bolognese sauce with some of my 3-ingredient, gluten-free, oat & chia, homemade in 10-30 minute pastas:

Gluten-free, salt-free, oil-free! Fight’s disease. Vegan, WFPBnO, healthy whole food ingredients, and backed up by the latest medical and scientific health data research.

Growing up, I would come home from school when the skys were grey and the ground was covered in red, brown, orange, and yellow leaves of autumn. Halfway up the street, you could smell the simmering tomatoes and you knew there was a warm bowl of noodles drenched in a bolognese sauce.

Warm up by the fire, or wrapped in a blanket as you slurp back the noodles and savory sauce.

Allergy Friendly – Top 8 Allergy Free

As usual with all the recipes:
no dairy, no eggs, no wheat, no nuts, no tree nuts, no shellfish, no seafood, no soy, no corn, no salt added, no oil added, no sugar added, no coconut.
Using only minimally processed or proven safe foods from scratch.

Have questions or a request to update a recipe for a specific allergy or food restriction? Contact me and I’d love to help!

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Nutrition Facts Table

My Biggest Problem with Vegan & Plant-based Bolognese:

• Many include ingredients like: “jar marinara,” vegan Worcestershire sauce, vegan beef stock 🤔, zucchini, corn kernels, canned mushrooms, cashews, oil, soy sauce, smoked tofu, liquid smoke, and other confusing items or strange additions that go against my aim to make plant-based eating as inclusive as possible.

This recipe aims to be close to authentic; mostly by keeping everything as simple as possible.

⭐The Full Healthy Bolognese Recipe⭐

Healthy Bolognese in a Hurry

Chef Rob

A Hearty Plant-Based meat sauce that warms the heart and soul. No weird stuff in it either. You should have all the ingredients right now in your pantry or fridge to replicate the traditional flavors with only whole plant foods.

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Prep Time 5 minutes mins

Cook Time 20 minutes mins

Total Time 25 minutes mins

Course Comfort Food, Dinner, Junk Food, Main Course, Sauce

Cuisine Italian

Servings 4 people

Calories 391.75 kcal

Equipment

• 1 Pot
• 1 Knife
• 1 Carrot / Vegetable peeler optional
• 1 Spice / Coffee Grinder optional (if you have oat flour then you won't need a grinder or blender etc.)

Ingredients

  

Bolognese Sauce

• ¼ cup red onion
• ¼ cup carrot finely diced/minced
• 1 cup tomatoes canned or diced
• ⅛ tsp celery seed ground
• ½ tsp onion powder
• ¼ tsp thyme ground
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1/16 tsp black pepper (or black cumin if you have it)
• 1 cup tomato paste
• 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
• 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
• 1 cup lentils (cooked or canned)

Heavy Oat Milk

• 3 tbsp oats ground into a flour
• 1.5 cups water

Instructions

 

Bolognese

• Put your pot on medium-high heat. When you throw your onions in the pan they should sizzle.

  Once your onions start to become translucent/lighter add your carrots. Once the onions get some color add your balsamic vinegar and stir until all liquid is absorbed then add your tomatoes and keep stirring until that liquid is absorbed then add your spices and remaining vinegars and cook until all liquid is absorbed.
  
• Now add your heavy oat milk by first mixing the oat flour and water then by mixing it with your bolognese sauce (step not shown).

  Next, add your cooked lentils and mix them really well into the sauce.
  
• Either add your pasta directly to the Bolognese sauce, plate your pasta and ladle on a liberal amount of the sauce.

  It's great topped with a simple Pumpkin Parm (or a cheaper and almost as good Sun Parm). Enjoy!
  

Notes

Pumpkin Parm

• 2 tbsp pumpkin seeds
• 2 tbsp nutritional yeast
• 1 tbsp flaxseeds

Sun Parm

• 2 tbsp sunflower seeds
• 2 tbsp nutritional yeast
• 1 tbsp flaxseeds

 

1. Add all ingredients (for either Pumpkin Parm or Sun Parm, not both) to a spice grinder and blend until you get slightly chunky power

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Tips for Making Perfect Bolognese

• Always scrape the sides and bottom of the pot: most of the flavor gets trapped in this gunk and it’s your job to liberate it!

Variations and Customizations

• Chili Bolognese: Made too much bolognese and still have leftovers? Add some cooked beans, 1 tsp chili powder and 0.25 tsp cumin powder to change it up. (Cayenne for heat)
• Bolognese Ravioli: Try cooking down the bolognese until it’s rather thick, cool it down, then use it to stuff some ravioli.

🧂If you absolutely must add salt then try to add it to taste, and in small amounts and only after tasting it first. The same goes for other “less healthy” additions, but the idea should be to try to limit and eventually remove adding them, over time, when you are ready.

After a few weeks of not eating a SAD diet your tastebuds reset and you’ll notice the natural sodium in foods, check out the great article, and subscribe to, Michael Corthell on Substack.

The Tricks I Used in this Bolognese Recipe

The real trick with this dish is it’s simplicity.

The only real tricks I’m using are the same in every other dish: cooked apple cider and balsamic vinegars both act as seasonings. The cider vinegar elevates the natural sodium inherent in the dish, and the balsamic vinegar helps add sweetness and cut through some of the acidity of the tomatoes, ironically.

These vinegars act as seasonings, the same way salt does when used in small amounts, to bring out the true flavors if the food and add brightness to it.

The celery seed, high in sodium, is where most of the sodium is pulled out from it.

The milk in bolognese is traditional, and it does add something unique to the flavor profile, although it seems like a strange addition, it still has the same effect in my recipe.

This recipe is fast because the acids interact with the tomatoes to bring out the flavor more quickly to break them down, almost like they’ve been on the stove for hours instead of minutes.

Because we don’t have any collagen/gelatin to break down we also save time while still keeping a more traditional flavor profile.

Kitchen Hacks & Tips

Here are some hacks for this recipe or the kitchen in general.

1. To get a very finely minced carrot you can use a vegetable peeler to peel the entire carrot and then you can mince the paper-thin sliced of carrot so therefore they break down and become part of the sauce–as they should, you don’t want to see big carrots chunks in a tomato-based sauce.
   
2. Feel free to substitute fresh garlic for granulated/powdered garlic at a ratio of 2 to 1 for granulated/powdered garlic (2) to fresh garlic (1). So for example, 1 tablespoons of garlic powder could be substituted for 0.5 tablespoons of fresh garlic.
   
3. Is sauce baked onto the side of the pot? That’s unadulterated flavor and you don’t want to lose it! Instead of scraping it with a spoon use the spoon to smear the still wet sauce on the hardened sauce. Wait 5-30 seconds and try scraping it again. It should come off easily from the added moisture!

Bonus Hack: if you’re cooking lentils for this and not using canned then cook them until they are al dente (they are soft but have a bit of bite still and aren’t mushy) but are almost falling apart (skins are coming off) and then add the 1 tablespoon of apple cider vinegar so that they stop breaking down as quickly but so you can still keep cooking them and so they make the sauce even thicker and heartier.

The Science – Sources

Please tell me how it turned out! Did you: try it, like it, hate it, change it, or do something else unexpected???

If I’ve made any mistakes, or something doesn’t make sense, or if you want more/less details, please let me know in the comments.

Healthy Bolognese in a Hurry