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Recipes || Lentil and Mushroom Bolognese

My quest for a plethora of tasty meat-free recipes continues! Today I’m bringing you a Lentil and Mushroom Bolognese. Here’s a secret – Sam loves bolognese but I typically don’t. I just find ground beef really….blah and bolognese sauces really dull. I always do them with carrots and loads of other veg to amp up the taste factor but I just can’t really get behind meat bolognese. 

So in the spirit of compromise, I did some experimenting with a lentil version! I was actually super, super happy with how it turned out and I might now be a bolognese convert. It was one of the first ones that I properly enjoyed, much to Sam’s delight – as he is a massive bolognese fan but I usually nix the idea. The bolognese itself is vegan friendly, and if you go for some egg-free pasta, it would be an easy dish to make entirely vegan. 

Lentil and Mushroom Bolognese

Ingredients: 

2 tablespoons of olive oil
340 g button mushrooms, sliced
4 cloves of garlic, minced
2 carrots, chopped
1 red pepper, chopped
1 onion, chopped
1/2 cup of red wine
1 bay leaf
1 can of tomatoes
2 cups of water
1 cup of brown lentils, rinsed
2 teaspoons of oregano
1/2 teaspoon of red pepper flakes
salt and pepper to taste
grated parmesan, if desired (always)
1/2 pack of spaghetti

Instructions: 

In a large sauce pan over medium heat, add in your olive oil, mushrooms, garlic, carrots, bell pepper and onion. Cook until the vegetables are brown and soft. This can take approximately 20 minutes.

Add in your wine and cook for about a minute. Make sure you scrape all the tasty browned bits off the bottom of your pot.

Stir in 1 bay leaf, tomatoes, water, lentils, oregano, salt, pepper and red pepper flakes. Turn up the heat until the sauce almost starts to boil. Then reduce the heat and simmer for about 25 minutes, or until the lentils are tender.

In the meantime, make your spaghetti. Once it’s done, top it with your lentil bolognese and add grated parmesan cheese over the top.

Would you be open to a lentil bolognese, or would you like to stick to beef bolognese? 

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