This hearty tempeh bolognese has a meaty texture and flavourful base, making for a delicious vegan pasta sauce that's low in fat and gluten-free. Great with spaghetti or your favourite pasta alternative.
Heat the oil in a large pan on low/medium heat. Add the chopped onion, carrot, and celery, and soften for around 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Sprinkle in some salt and pepper at this stage.
Once the veg has softened, add the chopped tempeh and garlic. Cook for 5 minutes, stirring regularly to try and get some colour on the tempeh pieces. If necessary, you can add a little more olive oil to help it along.
Turn up the heat, then add the tomato puree and red wine. Stir well and cook for a minute, before adding the tinned tomatoes and breaking these apart with a spoon.
Next, stir in the yeast extract (or tamari/soy sauce), bay leaves, dried oregano, and vegan stock (or pasta cooking water – see next step). You can also rinse each tomato tin with a splash of water and add this to the pan. Stir well and simmer on a low heat for 10 minutes.
If you're cooking dried pasta to serve with the bolognese, I'd start that about now. As the pasta cooks, you can add some of the starchy cooking water to the sauce to help thin it out. Do this as much as you need to maintain the desired consistency.
Once the sauce has been cooking for around 10 minutes, chop most of the fresh basil and stir this in. Adjust the seasoning and serve with freshly cooked pasta or a pasta substitute of your choice. Top with fresh basil leaves and cashew parmesan.
Notes
Gluten-free: Tempeh is often naturally gluten-free, but you may want to double-check that yours is certified or labelled as such. You'll also want to use a GF yeast extract (or tamari/soy sauce), vegan stock, and pasta variety.Frozen tempeh: If using frozen tempeh, defrost this first according to package instructions.Veg: If you don't want to finely chop all the veg, you could simply blitz it in a food processor.Other additions: Ingredients such as chopped mushrooms or walnuts would also work well here.Wine: If you don’t want to splash out on a bottle of (ideally vegan) red wine, just skip this.Pasta: If cooking pasta, I find it’s always better to cook this ‘to order’. I.e. if there are two of you eating, just cook 200-250 grams of pasta and save the rest of the sauce for the next time you want to eat.Storage: You can store this in the fridge for up to four days or freezer for several months.If you liked this recipe, you might also enjoy:
* The nutrition info below is for one serving of the tempeh bolognese, based on a total of four servings. It doesn't include information for cooked pasta or other accompaniments.
* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet.
Keyword tempeh pasta, tempeh recipe, vegan pasta
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