Vegan Bolognese Sauce

Usually I don't use this kind of soy meat, I rather make a bolognese sauce with lentils, much easier, but I saw the packet in the supermarket, and for Xmas I like to make lasagne with bolognese sauce, so I went for it.

I soak the textured soy with 500 ml of vegetables stock, it triples in size.

In the meantime I cleaned one large carrot, 2 celery stalks with leaves, 2 shallots, 2 garlic cloves and some Italian parsley.

I chopped the veggies and sautéed them with olive oil,

I added the textured soy and a glass of red wine, then 1 800 ml can of Italian chopped tomatoes, and 3 tbsp of tomato puree. At this point I let the sauce simmer for a couple of hours, adding salt and black pepper from time to time, tasting it to see if it needed more. Soy protein is very low in fat, so I added more olive oil.

It also needed more wine, but I finished the bottle. My husband had opened a nice 10 years old Australian red, to air. I put some of it in too, even if he looked at me badly. That wine was to good to cook with!

But just a little... and it made the sauce so nice :-). In the end he agreed with me, and then the wine needed to be drunk, or used!

Ready!!! Just don't use it with spaghetti please: spaghetti bolognese is not right, use it for tagliatelle, lasagne, or short pasta :-).

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©