Vegan Bolognese Pasta Sauce

Old-school, homemade, Italian Vegan Bolognese sauce bursts with depth, flavor, texture, and nutrients. In fact, I start salivating just thinking about how delicious it was at dinner last night! It’s so easy to make and is leaps and bounds beyond the best jar of sauce from the store. As a bonus, it really only takes 30 minutes to make from scratch.

Traditionally Bolognese is made with meat, so it’s our challenge to create vegan Bolognese with a depth of umami flavor and texture without it. We use mushrooms, nutritional yeast, and Bragg’s Liquid Aminos to expand the flavor profile and Yves brand Ground Round to add texture. You can also use textured vegetable protein or a vegan sausage for texture.

We debated which pasta to use with it and chose spaghetti last night. I love the look and feel of spaghetti, but I think a Tagliatelle would have held the Bolognese better. For our kids, I think we’ll try a Fusilli or Spatzle next time. The shape of these noodles will more easily deliver sauce in every bite. 

As a family of four, we had 2 servings leftover and they were so tasty heated up the next day for lunch! The boys requested it in their lunchboxes, but we cleverly led them to sandwiches instead :-)

We’re eager to use this vegan Bolognese in Your Vegan Family Lasagne next. We’ve been keeping it simple by using a pre-made organic red sauce, but given our lasagna process, I don’t think we’ll add more than a few minutes to our prep time by making the sauce from scratch. We’re eager to share this recipe once we get I perfected!

Serve up your fantastic, flavor-bursting vegan Bolognese and Pasta with a fresh garden salad and rustic bread to soak up any bits of sauce left on your plate.

Other vegan recipes you'll enjoy: 

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Vegan Bolognese Pasta Sauce Recipe

Prep

• 30 minutes prep
• Serves 6
• Suggested equipment: One large pot

Ingredients

• 1 large onion, chopped
• 1 cup chopped fresh mushrooms *see Chef's note if using dried mushrooms
• 6 cloves garlic
• 1 package Yves Ground Round soy protein or 1 cup textured vegetable protein (TVP), soaked*
• ½ cup red wine
• 5 Tbsp tomato paste
• 30 oz diced or crushed tomatoes
• 2 Tbsp nutritional yeast
• 1 Tbsp Bragg’s Liquid Aminos or 1 tsp salt
• 1 Tbsp dried basil or ¼ cup fresh basil
• 1 tsp dried oregano or 1 Tbsp fresh oregano
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Optional: 1 tsp cane sugar or 2 tsp coconut sugar
• Optional: Garnish with fresh basil and/or vegan parmesan cheese

*If using textured vegetable protein (TVP), soak 1 cup in 2 cups of water for 10 minutes and drain before use.

Instructions

1. Sauté onion, mushrooms, garlic, and Yves Ground Round or TVP in a large pot over medium heat for 10 minutes.
2. Add red wine and cook for 3 minutes.
3. Stir in tomato paste.
4. Add tomatoes, nutritional yeast, Bragg’s Liquid Aminos or salt, basil, and oregano. Simmer on medium-low heat stirring occasionally as your sauce cooks and the flavors blend, 10+ minutes.
5. Salt and pepper to taste. Serve with the pasta of your choice. Garnish with fresh basil and/or vegan parmesan cheese.

Chef's Notes 

Traditional Italian Bolognese sauce is made with meat. We like to use the Yves brand Ground Round as our protein source in our Vegan Bolognese Pasts Sauce and we recognize that not everyone will find this in your local store. Bob’s Red Mill makes a dried Textured Vegetable Protein that can be reconstituted and gives a similar texture and protein profile to your Bolognese. Although we haven’t tried it, you could probably use extra firm tofu too.  Ultimately, we suggest you use what you like.

The same goes for the Bragg’s Liquid Aminos. We use it as a salt substitute because it provides more of that umami flavor depth. You could also use miso paste, Yondu’s Umami Sauce, or just salt.

If you use dried mushrooms, reconstitute covering with boiling water and soaking for 10+ minutes. Save the soaking liquid and add it to the sauce.

Sugar: Depending on the acidity and sweetness of the tomatoes you use, you may want to add a bit of sugar to your sauce. Just a tiny bit of sugar can soften the bitter edge of canned tomatoes and open the flavor profile of your vegan Bolognese.

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Written by Your Vegan Family 

Stacy and Markus live an adventurous vegan lifestyle and write articles about their experiences cooking global vegan cuisine, creating businesses, raising vegan kids, and traveling through more than 65 countries. They earned degrees in molecular biology and acupuncture, consulted over decades for healthcare companies and individuals, created businesses in Asian medicine, eco-tourism, cultural immersion, and taught yoga in myriad venues.

We’ve learned a lot from eating a plant-based diet for 25 years and are eager to share more with you. Learn more on our About Us page.

Vegan Bolognese Pasta Sauce Recipe Grocery List: 

• onion
• garlic cloves
• mushrooms
• tomatoes or canned tomatoes
• fresh basil or dried basil
• fresh oregano or dried oregano
• 1 package of Yves Ground Round soy protein or 1 cup textured vegetable protein
• red wine
• tomato paste
• nutritional yeast
• Bragg's Liquid Aminos or salt 
• pepper
• optional: cane or coconut sugar
• optional: vegan parmesan cheese

Vegan Bolognese Pasta Sauce Recipe Nutritional Analysis

The information shown is an estimate provided by an online nutritional calculator. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice. When exact ingredients are not available in this database, the closest substitution is made. This recipe has a couple of ingredients HappyForks doesn't list. We substituted tofu for the Yves Ground Round, and they do not list nutritional yeast, so that hard to get B-12 vitamin doesn't show up in the analysis. There is no good substitute for nutritional yeast.

Overall, the recipe is more nutrient-rich than this analysis shows :-)

Percentages are based on a 2,000 calorie daily diet for an adult. 

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