Easy Vegetable Bolognese Sauce

This easy vegetable bolognese sauce is full of veggies in a rich sauce that mimics traditional Italian meat sauce. It’s a healthy and vegetarian dish that not only tastes delicious but you’ll feel good about eating.

You might also like this Mexican vegetarian rice casserole.

This summer my son came back from college and was interested in cooking and vegetarian recipes. I was excited to try some new recipes and teach him what I new about cooking. I liked the challenge of cooking without meat though I’m not a vegetarian. I do love veggies though so I made this easy vegetable bolognese sauce because I knew my son would love it.

This past year I went to Italy and had traditional bolognese sauce for the first time and made a keto version for the blog. This veggie version was a bit more challenging but it came out so good. The diced mushrooms and walnuts gave it that meaty flavor and the rest of the sauce is pretty much the same as regular bolognese.

So if you are vegetarian, need a meatless dinner option or just trying to get more veggies in your diet you have to try this easy pasta dish. I used chickpea pasta too to up the protein in the dish and while not my favorite pasta alternative normally it was perfect for this bold and delicious sauce.

Recipe ingredients I used and substitutions.

The simple ingredients I used were yellow onion, carrots, celery, mushrooms, walnuts, fresh garlic cloves, cream, diced canned tomatoes, tomato paste, Italian seasoning, olive oil, Better than Bouillon vegetable bouillon, salt and black pepper. That is quite the list but they are all pretty common ingredients you will have on hand.

Veggies
The fresh veggies I used were diced carrots, celery and onions which are typical in the traditional sauce and the mushrooms were added to give it that meaty flavor. When they are diced and cooked down they are a great substitution for meat. I used regular white button mushrooms but you can use portobello mushrooms or really whatever kind of you want.

Walnuts
This was something new that I remembered using along time ago when I was a vegetarian meatloaf. The chopped walnuts are much like the mushrooms as they have that chewy meaty texture when cooked. I would not use other nuts to substitute as the walnuts create the right texture.

Better that Bouillon Vegetable Base
You all know I love these bouillon flavor bases as they add so much flavor to soups and sauces. I happened to have a vegetarian version and it was perfect for this recipe. If you don’t have any you can substitute with vegetable bouillon or broth or just eliminate it.

Tomatoes and Garlic
I think that fresh garlic is necessary for this recipe instead of garlic powder. So if you can use that please do. As for the tomato products just use your standard diced tomatoes and tomato paste. If you can find small diced tomatoes they will cook down faster.

Heavy Whipping Cream
Most traditional recipes call for milk but I never have that on hand and used heavy whipping cream. I really like it better but you can substitute with whole milk or 2% milk. You want to add some creaminess to the sauce so I would not use plant based milk if you can.

Note I also sometimes use parmesan cheese and hot pepper flakes at the end as a garnish but is not necessary in the recipe.

How to make this easy vegetable bolognese.

Note you an get a pot of boiling water going as you make this vegetarian bolognese sauce. Make any pasta shape you want according to package instructions and by the time.you drain the pasta this sauce should be done.

Step 1: First you want to finely dice the onion, carrots, celery, mushrooms and walnuts. I use the vegetable chopper all the time now for recipes like this that need uniform, finely diced veggies.

Step 2: Get out a pot and heat to medium heat then add 1 tablespoon olive oil. When it’s hot, add the onion, carrot and celery. Saute for 2-3 minutes until the veggies soften.

Step 3: Then add the other tablespoon of olive oil and add the mushrooms and walnuts. Saute for a couple of minutes until the mushrooms soften.

Step 4: While that’s sautéing mix the Better than Bouillon with water to make broth. if using vegetable stock or broth skip this step.

Step 5: When the all the vegetables and nuts have softened add the broth, crushed garlic, salt, black pepper, hot pepper flakes, Italian seasoning, diced tomatoes and tomato paste.

Mix well to combine then cover and cook for 8 minutes to let everything cook down a bit. Then take the lid off and cook for another 7 minutes. You wan the tomatoes to cook down and it should take about 15 minutes in total.

Step 6: Lastly add in the heavy cream (or milk if using) and cook for a few more minutes on low. Take off the stove and serve. I like to add some fresh grated parmesan cheese but that’s optional. You could also use nutritional yeast which is a good dairy free substitution for parmesan.

I made a chickpea pasta to go with this because it was higher in protein than regular pasta. You can use whatever you want. Sometimes I like to mix the cooked pasta in this beefy tomato sauce. When I made the keto version I used turnip noodles which were also delicious!

You can serve this vegetable bolognese pasta with crusty bread and a nice green salad to make it a complete meal but we just had the pasta. Store leftovers in an airtight container. Please scroll down to view the printable recipe card.

More tasty vegetarian dishes to try.

If you are vegetarian or just looking for more easy meatless dishes these are some of my favorite veggie centric dishes.

• Veggie quesadillas or veggie bean burritos
• cauliflower steaks romano or veggie lasagna without pasta
• curry quinoa rice pilaf or curry caulilower salad
• pasta with fresh tomatoes and basil
• Lebanese roasted cauliflower and rice
• air fryer mushroom flatbread or veggie and hummus lavash bread
• vegetable noodles lo mein or Thai eggplant curry

This easy vegetable bolognese sauce was surprisingly but absolutely delicious dish and you would never know there was not ground beef or hamburger in it. It was also a hearty meal as well as healthy. I hope you give it a try and like it as much as we did.

This made about 6 cups of sauce or 6 servings so the nutritional information for 1 serving was 226 calories / 19.2g fat / 11.8g carbs / 2.7g fiber / 4.5g protein = 9.2g net carbs.

And the nutritional information for Aldi Simply Nature chickpea rotini for 1 cup is 300 calories / 4.5g fat / 51g carbs / 11g fiber / 19g protein so if you want to add more fiber and protein to this dish this a good option.