Quick and Easy Vegan Red Lentil Bolognese
After my first attempt to make a Vegan Red Lentil Bolognese, Amelia improved upon it. While my version (featured in our Vegan What We Eat In A Day video on our VegansAbroad YouTube Channel) was a little easier and a one-pot bolognese, Amelia’s was more flavorful and closer to a conventional bolognese.
Some people recommend cooking the lentils in the same pot as the sauce, but we weren’t happy with how they turned out. We simmered the sauce with the lentils for about 45 minutes and felt like they still could have cooked longer. So in Amelia’s version, we cooked the lentils in a separate pot for about 30 minutes and that worked much better. We’re at high altitude here in Cuenca, Ecuador, so things take longer to cook here. Red lentils at sea level will probably cook in much less time.
We served our bolognese over regular linguine pasta, but it’s better if you use whole wheat pasta. Whole wheat vegan products can be difficult to find here, so sometimes we’re stuck with the regular pasta.
This recipe pairs well with our Easy Garden Salad.
If you make this recipe, please let us know your thoughts in the comments below. And please share with your friends to help spread the word about healthy plant based eating.
| Servings | Prep Time |
| 4 servings | 10 minutes |
| Cook Time |
| 1 hour |
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Quick and Easy Vegan Red Lentil Bolognese recipe is super easy and flavorful. It has a similar taste and mouthfeel as conventional bolognese.
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- 1 cup red lentils sorted and rinsed
- 3 cups water
- 1/2 cup onion chopped, about 1 small onion
- 1/2 cup carrot chopped, about 1 medium carrot
- 1/2 cup celery chopped, about 1 medium celery
- 1/4 cup vegetable broth
- 1 16oz tomato sauce or marina sauce
- 1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk
- 1 tsp basil
- 1 tsp oregano
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
- 1/8 tsp nutmeg
- 1/8 tsp black pepper
- 8 oz whole wheat linguine dry
- Assemble the ingredients and chop the veggies to be sautéed.
- Cook lentils per package directions until tender, about 30 minutes. You can do this ahead of time for convenience.
- Heat 1/4 cup veggie broth in a large skillet. Add the onions, carrots and celery. Steam fry until the veggies are tender, about 5 minutes.
- Assemble the sauce ingredients.
- Add tomato sauce, milk, and spices and stir to combine.
- Add the lentils and simmer over low heat until the sauce is bubbly and the flavors are well blended, approximately 20 minutes.
- Cook the pasta according to the package instructions.
- Serve over your favorite pasta.
Serving size is about 3/4 cup cooked pasta topped with 3/4 cup Vegan Red Lentil Bolognese.
We really enjoyed this tasty dish. We had it over gluten free pasta. I did need to increase the amount of vegetable broth just slightly though to mitigate the quick evaporation. We loved it, thank you!