Vegan Bolognese Recipe (Vegetarian Meat Sauce) (2024)

Thisvegan Bolognese recipeis about to carjack your pasta nights and take you or a high-speed chase to the dreamiest, meatiest spaghetti on earth. It's a hearty, plant-based meat sauce that you can get ready in under 30 minutes. It’s got all of the the rich, deep flavors of a classic Bolognese, but made without harming a single adorable animal.

Ready for something heartier for your s'ghetti than marinara sauce? This sauce, traditionally known as ragù alla bolognese, comes from (you guessed it) from Bologna, Italy. You'll be amazed at how it perfectly mimics the meaty texture and savory depth of the traditional version but upgrades it with the bold umami depth of red wine and an almost secret whisper of bay leaves.

With some golden, herb-kissed vegan garlic bread to dip in it, or over pasta and with Turkish roasted eggplant, you’ll have a stupid-delicious, hearty meal on the table pretty darned quick. And the best part? You only need a handful of ingredients to create this bomb sauce.

I know what you're thinking: "Can I for real make a vegetarian sauce that tastes as good as the original?" Absolutely! This vegan bolognese recipe has been carefully tested about a zillion times to ensure that even on your first try, you'll nail it. So, grab your favey pot, and let's nail this sauce!

🥰 Why you'll adore this recipe

✊Vegan AF and GF:Like all of my vegan Italian recipes, this Bolognese is 100% made without animal-based ingredients or cholesterol. It also just happens to be a completely gluten-free recipe too (provided you use vegan mince, not seitan in the recipe).

🍅Tomato Magic:Look, everyone’s got a different style, and mine is to use big broken-up pieces of whole peeled tomato in the sauce. It gives this tomato sauce a chunkier, more rustic vibe. The chunks of tomato, simmered and broken down with red wine and herbs, create a depth of flavor that feels a bit sophisticated and old-worldy.

✅Tested and Approved Worldwide:Like all my vegan recipes, this spaghetti sauce has been perfected and then tested by a massive team of recipe testers from all around the world. It got a lot of big thumbs-ups.

🍷 Notable ingredients and substitutions

Olive Oil

Great quality first-cold pressed extra virgin olive oil makes a huge difference in this recipe. You will notice that in addition to using it for the initial sautéing onions and carrots, I also like to drizzle in a healthy glut of it at the end. By adding it at the end of the cooking process, the fresh, fruity, and slightly peppery notes of the oil are preserved, providing a deeper dimension of flavor to the sauce. If you're out of olive oil, avocado oil is a good substitute, but nothing on earth really has the classic taste of EVOO!

Carrot

Carrots bring a subtle sweetness and add to the meaty texture of the sauce. If you bought a whole big bag of carrots to make this recipe with, and have a ton left over, some great carrot recipes to bang out next are my roasted carrot lentil soup, Indian carrot pickle, and my lemongrass tofu banh mi. If carrots aren’t your thing, try parsnips for a similar texture.

Vegan Ground Beef

Options like Beyond Meat or Impossible provide a meaty texture without the meat or gluten. Otherwise, you can make this recipe using homemade seitan. You can also add some ground vegan Italian sausage or vegan pepperoni to the mix to give the sauce more of a sausage flavor.

Red Wine

Red wine adds a rich, complex flavor to the sauce. Did you know that not all wines are vegan? Heck some aren’t even vegetarian! Since I don’t drink alcohol, and only cook with it occasionally, I always rely on barnivore, a helpful website that lets you look up brands and varieties of alcohol to verify if it’s safe for vegans. Otherwise, unsalted vegetable stock works great in this recipe in place of the wine. If you use a dry red wine, you can use a splash of it in my vegan tiramisu recipe, which is made with homemade vegan mascarpone cheese, and eggless ladyfingers soaked in espresso.

Tomato Paste

Tomato paste helps deepens the sauce's richness, and give it the right consistency. Another great option is to use tatli biber salcasi, a sweet Turkish pepper paste that is used in recipes like kisir, Turkish stuffed cabbage, and cig kofte. If you want a spicier sauce, you can swap it out for aci biber salcasi, a pepper paste made from hotter peppers with a similar consistency to tomato paste.

Balsamic Vinegar

Adding an important touch of acidity and sweetness, balsamic vinegar balances and enlivens the flavors of the whole sauce. If you don’t have it, a dash of red wine vinegar, or apple cider vinegar with a little sweetener of your choice can substitute.

Bay Leaf

This herb, "alloro" in Italian, infuses the sauce with a subtle, earthy flavor. Think of it as a “secret ingredient” people eating your sauce will not be able to pinpoint, that just adds a touch of magic. It’s best removed before serving as it can be a bit overpowering if eaten directly. You can also make the sauce using Indonesian bay leaves, which I use in dishes like sambal goreng potatoes, and Indonesian coconut rice to inflect a subtle, almost fresh-tobacco-like flavor.

*See the recipe card at the bottom of the page for exact quantities, nutritional info, and detailed cooking directions.

📖How to make this vegan bolognese recipe

Make this classic Italian sauce perfectly by following these step-by-step instructions with helpful tips. Or you can follow along with the easy-to-print recipe card towards the bottom of this page.

Step One

Sizzle & Soften:

Begin by warming the olive oil in a large pot, or non-reactive, large skillet on medium heat. Toss in the diced yellow onion and carrot, sautéing them for 4-5 minutes until softened and fragrant.

Step Two

Garlic & ‘Grounds':

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Next, add the minced garlic and your choice of vegan ground ground meat, or ground seitan to the pan. Cook this mixture for about five minutes, or until the vegan beef gains a slight golden brown hue.

Step Three

Deglaze Put Your Weapon, I Mean You No Harm:

Pour in dryred wine or vegetable stock to deglaze the pan. Make sure to gently scrape off any delicious browned bits stuck to the bottom, then allow it to simmer for a short while.

Step Four

Tomato Toss-In:

After either hand-crushing, or fork-mashing the tomatoes, toss them into the pan along with their juice. Add the balsamic vinegar, sugar, bay leaves, oregano, salt, and black pepper, stirring well.

Step Five

Simmer & Thicken:

Allow the sauce to gently simmer on low heat, uncovered, for about thirty minutes. Stir it now and then. The sauce will gradually thicken and deepen in color. Don't forget to remove the bay leaf and mix a liberal pour of good quality extra virgin olive oil into the hearty sauce just before you're ready to serve.

Step Six

Pasta Plating:Finally, ladle the rich bolognese over freshly cooked pasta. For an extra touch, sprinkle some finely chopped fresh parsley, fresh basil leaves, and vegan parmesan, or a small amount of nutritional yeast on top. Perhaps some vegan meatballs too? Surely!

🤷‍♀️ Recipe FAQs

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