Vegan Bolognese

I've been making my vegan Bolognese for years now, so I thought I would share my recipe.

This is gluten free and vegan, plus you can adjust as needed to meet your dietary requirements.

I do include TVP (Textured vegetable protein) in this mix, which is processed and a soy based product. I don't really eat soy as it seems to make my gut unwell, plus the other obvious reasons people don't like soy. However, I can eat this with no issues and its a really great source of protein.

If you want to limit your processed goods or have issues with soy based products/GMO - leave it out!

We get so many meals out of this cook! It feeds both my husband and I for around 4 meals each, depending on what we make with it.

I can't eat garlic or onion but if you can, include it in the recipe for extra flavour. I use garlic infused oil which works well.

You can serve this mixture with pasta or rice. Leave out the tinned tomatoes and you can use this as a chilli con carne mix, tacos, nachos or whatever you like, very versatile.

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
3 medium carrot, finely diced
1 medium onion, finely diced (leave this out if you can't eat)
3-5 celery stalks, finely diced
1/4 cup raw walnuts, finely chopped
500g cups raw cup mushrooms, sliced (pulse in food processor if you are not using TVP to be the 'mince')
1 cup TVP mince (dry) - textured vegetable protein, soy based product
Herbs/Spices: 1 teaspoon sweet paprika, 1/8 teaspoon red chilli flakes (leave out of you can't eat), 1 teaspoon cumin, 1 teaspoon coriander, 1 teaspoon turmeric
1cm cube of fresh ginger or 1 teaspoon ginger spice
3 cloves garlic, pressed OR 1 tablespoon of garlic infused oil
1 tablespoon gluten free soy sauce/ tamari
1 teaspoon vegan stock powder or cube
1 to 2 can crushed tomatoes (depending on how saucy you like it)
1 tablespoon sugar (I use coconut sugar)
2 tablespoons nutritional yeast (also known as nooch or savoury yeast flakes)
Salt to your taste

Cooking instructions:

Boil water for your TVP
While the water is boiling, place roughly chopped carrot and celery (cut into 1-3cm pieces) into your food processor and blitz it up until finely diced/chopped. Or finely dice by hand if you don't have a food processor.
When water has boiled, place the 1 cup of TVP and enough boiling water to cover in a bowl (the TVP will absorb the water). Add the soy sauce, vegan stock to TVP while it soaks for at least 10 minutes. If you don't allow the TVP to soak for very long, you may get that chewy kind of texture.
Heat your large pan with all the spices and herbs to aromate them
Add ginger & garlic (or garlic infused oil) to the pan to cook for a few minutes
Add the Mirepoix into pan with aromated spices & herbs - Oil, onion, carrot & celery and caramelise
Once caramelised, add mushrooms and cook until browned
Then add TVP to mix and the remainder of the ingredients to the pan - walnuts, sugar, nooch, salt, tomatoes
Cook on low simmer for 15 minutes or until mixture has thickened and reduced down. If you decide to use fresh tomatoes, you will need to simmer this for longer.
If you are having with pasta or rice, cook this while your bolognese mix is simmering so its all ready at the same time.
Dig in and enjoy!