Vegetable Bolognese Sauce/Soup (Stews & Sauces)

Member Name: Claire_DC

Product:	Stews & Sauces
Date:	29/10/08 (145 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Healthy, Nutritious, Tastes Good, Can Make In Large Amounts & Freeze, Versatile

Disadvantages: Preparing the veg... unless you have a food processor.

When I became vegetarian I was 6 years old and my mum had to act quickly to make foods that I could eat, or adapt things she made for the family. One of these meals was an adapted version of her spaghetti Bolognese sauce. This consisted of having tomatoes, onion, and herbs on my pasta which I did enjoy. Since I was young, trying to get me to eat something that tasted of meat was not really an option, and from w hat I gather meat substitutes weren't that great back then. I still don't eat anything that is attempting to taste like meat.

Since then I have adapted the recipe somewhat to make it even more nutritious, and to include vegetables that as an adult, I will eat without as much of a fuss haha.

When I make this spaghetti sauce, I always make a large pan of it and then freeze it as it makes less work for me for the 'hassle' of preparing it and then making it in single portions as and when required, plus it gives the flavours a chance to mingle together more, giving a better taste in my opinion.

As I'm a vegetarian and on a diet, I am always looking to find yummy meals to eat that don't make me feel like I am on a diet, this dish is BRILLIANT for doing this as it's full of flavour and fills me up, yet is not fattening (It's actually 0 points on weight watchers) and all ingredients are good for my health.

The ingredients you will need are as follows:

2 Onions diced (not too small but not big lumps either)
3 Carrots, grated.
3 Cloves Garlic
3 Courgettes grated
1 Handful mushrooms, grated (You can use more but I'm not a big fan of them so only use a few)
3 Finely chopped peppers (I use 2 red, one green)
3 Cartons Tomato Passata (500g x 3)
2 Vegetable Stock Cubes
Tomato Puree
Italian Seasoning or Mixed Herbs (to taste)

Optional, But Recommended:

Fresh Basil ripped
½ Teaspoon Chilli powder to give it a kick
Garlic Salt



Lightly fry off the vegetables and garlic in a tiny bit of olive oil or fry light, then add in your chilli and garlic salt if you're using them and stir for a few minutes.

Add in your cartons of passata and your tomato puree (about a tablespoon - 2 table spoons depending on how you like it), plus your stock cubes and dried herbs and then taste to make sure you have all your quantities right for you.

Leave to simmer for about 20 minutes and then just before serving, throw in your fresh basil if you are using it. I serve mine with pasta, jacket potatoes, chips (for a treat) and sometimes with a sprinkle of cheese on top, again if I'm treating myself and sometimes use it cold as a salsa. If you add some water to this recipe in with the stock cubes it can even be eaten as a soup, with some bread; it really is a very versatile sauce.

As variations you could also take vegetables out/add others in depending on what you like to eat (leek, celery, aubergine etc and at the same time as the other grated/finely chopped vegetables). You generally don't taste all of the vegetables (which is why I use mushrooms when I don't usually eat them) but they bulk it up and make it more nutritious. Plus it is good if you're giving it to kids as they don't know they're eating all those vegetables.

This recipe makes a huge amount of pasta sauce, so more than enough to fill the family and/or put some away for another time, depending on how many people you're feeding in one serving and of course how hungry they are haha. You can change the amounts (more or less) quite easily, in fact most of this can be done in guess work so don't worry if you're not too accurate with the amounts, as long as it tastes good to you then that's good enough for me!


Thanks for reading. x

Summary: Yummy healthy meal... yes yummy and healthy in the same sentence.