Lentil bolognese
If you’re looking for a vegan alternative to a bolognese sauce this recipe is a good place to start. It’s protein rich and and after testing several times I think I’ve got a good depth of flavour. To do this I’ve used a few extra ingredients, but don’t be put off as they’re all easy to buy and the sauce cooks itself after you’ve fried the onions - I promise!
I always find that you need make a little bit more effort to get the right texture and flavour in vegetarian dishes, so it’s worth having ingredients that bring umami or a deep savoury taste in your cupboard if you want to cook like this more regularly.
Things I keep in stock are: nutritional yeast, veg stock cubes, vegetable bouillon, Marmite, Worcestershire sauce (veggie or normal if you aren’t strict like me!), dried porcini mushrooms, soy, miso, olives, toasted seeds or nuts, capers, plus vinegars or citrus to give dishes a lift before serving. To add zing I use balsamic (which also adds umami), red/white wine or cider vinegar, lemon or lime juice and zest.
This recipe is for a big batch of sauce that you can use in a few different ways. It’s always a win for me if I can get a couple of meals out of one recipe as it saves time in the kitchen and it’s always nice to get ahead of yourself. If you split the sauce in half you can serve it with pasta, courgetti, roasted squash wedges, baked sweet potato, or as a pie topped with cheesy mash, sweet potato or puff pastry. This time I went for tagliatelle and a ‘cottage’ pie with Maris Piper mash, but it would also work really well with sweet potato or squash mash.
And now on to the all important question: how the hell do I get my kids to eat it? Well, my trick is to use a hand blender to blitz either part or all of their portion so they’re not too freaked out by the lentils! Not rocket science and probably not in any parenting manual, but it’s one way to get/trick my (very picky) 15 year old son into eating something that isn’t a/ breaded b/ beige. The other obvious thing to do is serve with a mound of cheese as I find most things become more child-friendly covered in melted cheddar.
Ingredients
Serves 8
2 aubergines, 2 cm cubes
1.5 tbsp olive oil
2 red onions, small dice
2 celery sticks, small dice
2 large cloves of garlic, grated
600g mushrooms
175ml red wine
250g green lentils
2 x 400g tins of tomatoes
2 tbsp tomato puree
1 tsp oregano
1 vegetable stock cube or 2 tsp veg bouillon
1/2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce (vegetarian)
500ml water
1 tsp red wine vinegar
1 1/4 tsp sea salt
Handful of fresh basil leaves, stalks reserved and chopped
Parmesan to serve
Method
Preheat the oven to 200ºc.
Put the aubergine on a large tray and drizzle with 1 tbsp of olive oil. Place in the oven for 30 minutes, turning half way and adding a little more oil if needed. Set aside when cooked.
Heat 1 tbsp rapeseed oil in a large pan and cook the onions and celery on low heat for 20 minutes then add the garlic for a further 1 minute.
While the onions are cooking, put the mushrooms in a food processor and pulse until they resemble a rough crumble. I usually do 3-4 quick pulses.
Turn the heat up a little and add the mushrooms and red wine to the onion mix. Allow to bubble for 5 minutes, to burn off the alcohol and some of the water from the mushrooms.
Then pour in the lentils, tinned tomatoes, tomato purée, oregano, stock cube, Worcestershire sauce, water and basil stalks; cook with the lid on for 30 minutes
Add the roasted aubergine and then cook for 20 minutes with the lid on adding the red wine vinegar for the last 5 minutes.
Add the salt and basil leaves.
Serve with parmesan or feta.
