This Hearty Vegetable Bolognese is a deliciously filling vegetarian recipe made with fresh vegetables, walnuts (trust me on this one!) and a splash of cabernet. Pair it with your favorite whole wheat spaghetti, zucchini noodles or penne pasta for a comforting meal at the end of a long day. Thank you so much to ALDI for sponsoring this post!
More than a handful of times I’ve shared my love for jarred marinara sauce on the blog. It’s complete blasphemy to many people out there, I know, but there’s no way I’m the only one out there who rarely makes her own pasta sauce because there are full grocery store aisles dedicated to selling tons of it. Right!?
Truth be told, I like (quality!) jarred marinara sauce a lot. I like the taste, the texture and, perhaps most importantly, the ease. I know, you’re not shocked. Me, use a shortcut to help make an easy recipe!? I mean it’s pretty much all I make around here so it’s pretty much all I share around here, too. Hopefully you’ve caught onto this by now and simply celebrate the fact that healthy food and healthy recipes do not have to be complicated or fancy. Simple is often best – at least for me – because I know that a recipe that takes under 30 minutes is way more likely to be made in our house on repeat than a complicated one that takes a ton of time to prepare.
So today I’m sharing a recipe that calls for jarred marinara sauce. I used ALDI’s SimplyNature Organic Marinara Pasta Sauce as the base and love the way the sauce is thick enough to coat noodles (or zoodles) and packed with garlic, basil and oregano, the flavors and spices I expect in a delicious marinara. Plus, like every product in ALDI’s SimplyNature line, it’s free of artificial ingredients and preservatives.
But let’s not get too ahead of ourselves! Because we’re always on a mission to eat more vegetables in our house, I wanted to add a bunch of vegetables to the sauce to make it heartier and almost meatier, but without the meat. I wanted to make the kind of sauce you find yourself craving the minute the weather outside begins to change and you find yourself reaching for a sweater or a sweatshirt in place of a breezy tee.
To try to mimic the texture of ground beef found in typical Bolognese sauce, I drew inspiration from a local plant-based restaurant (Living Kitchen, for any CLT locals!) that uses nuts rather than meat in many of their filling and delicious entrees and incorporated crushed walnuts into the sauce along with mushrooms, carrots, onions, bell peppers and olives. The end result was a heavenly semi-homemade hearty vegetable Bolognese sauce that the entire family loved! Truly this recipe is probably one of the best ones I’ve shared on this blog to date. Everything just kind of worked in this dish from the fresh veggies to the buttery walnuts and Italian seasonings. We absolutely loved this Bolognese and with so many different ways to use this sauce (I have visions of lasagna and baked penne pasta), I know this recipe will be one we make again and again.
Hearty Vegetable Bolognese
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Hearty Vegetable Bolognese
- Prep Time: 10 mins
- Cook Time: 30 mins
- Total Time: 40 mins
- Yield: 6-8 servings 1x
- Category: vegetarian, dinner
Description
This Hearty Vegetable Bolognese is a deliciously filling vegetarian recipe made with fresh vegetables, walnuts (trust me on this one!) and a splash of cabernet.
Ingredients
- 2 cups peeled, chopped carrots
- 1/2 cup chopped bell peppers
- 8 ounces fresh mushrooms
- 2 small yellow onions
- 1/4 cup Specially Selected Kalamata Olives
- 1/4 cup Outlander Cabernet Sauvignon
- 3 garlic cloves, peeled
- 1 cup Southern Grove Walnuts
- 1 1/2 teaspoons SimplyNature Italian Seasoning
- 1 teaspoon Stonemill Sea Salt
- 1 25-ounce jar SimplyNature Organic Marinara Sauce
- Specially Selected Gruyere Cheese, for topping
Instructions
- In a food processor, shred the carrots, bell peppers, olives, mushrooms, onions and garlic until they are shredded into very fine pieces.
- Drizzle a large, deep nonstick skillet with olive oil and heat to a medium-high heat. Add the shredded vegetables and allow them to cook down, as the water sweats out and they reduce in volume for about 5 minutes. Add the wine, reduce the heat and allow to simmer longer (approximately 7-10 minutes), until almost all of the liquid is gone.
- While the vegetables are cooking, place the walnuts, Italian seasonings and sea salt into the food processor and grind into a course meal, taking care not to over grind, as a paste will form.
- Add the walnuts to the skillet and stir.
- Add the marinara sauce and stir to combine. Simmer on medium-low heat for another 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
- Serve on top of whole wheat spaghetti, zucchini noodles, spaghetti squash or your favorite pasta and enjoy!
Notes
I bought everything I needed to make this recipe at ALDI, including organic vegetables (mushrooms, carrots, onion, mini bell peppers), SimplyNature Italian Seasoning, Outlander Cabernet Sauvignon (perfect in the sauce and in a glass along with your pasta), SimplyNature Whole Wheat Spaghetti, fresh basil, garlic and Specially Selected Kalamata Olives (they added the most deliciously salty, briny taste to the sauce). ALDI has quickly become my go-to spot for organic produce because it’s so darn affordable (often less than conventional produce at other grocers) and I love their SimplyNature line so, so much.
Of course I had to top my pasta off with freshly grated cheese before serving and used Specially Selected Le Gruyere cheese imported from Switzerland. The cheese is so rich and creamy and also served as the best savory cooking snack while I made this sauce! If you’re looking for a vegan sauce, simply leave this one out!
When it comes to shredding the vegetables in this sauce, I highly recommend using the shredding attachment on your food processor but if you don’t have one you may also shred vegetables using a standard box grater.
I really hope you guys love this sauce as much as we did in our house!
Question of the Day
What are some of your favorite cooking shortcuts?
I love using jarred pasta sauce or marinades, pre-chopped frozen vegetables and ginger paste in recipes.
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This looks like such an easy recipe! I have those days where I don’t want to make my own sauce and there are some great options for jarred sauce at the grocery store 🙂
HA! I’m all about ease when it comes to dinnertime.
Same! 30-minutes or less for me. Always.
We just got Aldi here in Richmond a year or two ago and I’m AMAZED at how affordable everything else! I’ve also been impressed with the quality!
Isn’t it amazing!? I feel like a broken record sometimes but I seriously cannot get over their cheap prices! And I love how their organic selection continues to grow.
Crushed walnuts as a meat texture substitute? Genius! I love bulking our marinara with lentils and tiny diced carrots.
I’m definitely making this!! It’s a good way to use up veggies before they go bad 🙂
Thanks for sharing a vegetarian/vegan recipe! Wish we had ALDI in Texas.
Oooo, a vegetarian pasta recipe! This would go over well in my house. Some shortcuts I love are canned beans. I know they’re full of sodium, but they were lifesavers this week for Tuesday’s baked enchilada casserole and last night’s bean stew!
Yes!!! I do try to buy the reduced sodium ones when they’re available and they are so great for quick and easy dinners/lunches.
This sounds so delicious. I live in Michigan and this past week we’re really starting to get colder fall temperatures and gloomy weather. This recipe sounds divine, as a pescatarian this would be a great meal for me! YUMMMY!!!!
i can’t even get over how delicious this sounds – and with walnuts?! sign. me. up. i’ve been looking for new recipes that are good for fall/winter meal prep and this bolognese has to be one of them! pinning now. thanks for sharing 🙂
i can’t even get over how delicious this sounds – and with walnuts?! sign. me. up. i’ve been looking for new recipes that are good for fall/winter meal prep and this bolognese has to be one of them! pinning now. thanks for sharing 🙂
Such a childhood favorite! I haven’t had bolognese in years, but my mom used to make it all the time growing up!
I fricken love aldi! I live by myself and my total for groceries this week was…… FIFTEEN DOLLA AND SOME CHANGE. WHAT?! And it’s all healthy food that I can feel good about putting in my body!
LOL!!! That’s amazing! And this comment seriously did make me laugh out loud. I feel ya on the ALDI love!
Yay! So glad to see a plant based recipe on your blog! I’ve definitely been incorporating more plant based meals into my family’s weekly meal prep and honestly love the way I feel when I’m not bogged down with too much meat. It’s amazing how the body can adapt to finding nourishment from other sources instead of what people typically think of for a good dose of protein, vitamins and minerals. Plant power is where it’s at!!
I love that this recipe includes veggies in the sauce! It’s on my list for next week.
I always LOVE your recipes because they are healthy and simple – I pin a LOT of recipes on pinterest, from blogs and elsewhere, but your recipes are the ones I actually MAKE…..because they don’t require exhaustive work! So I’m totally on board. This looks really delicious, and I love Aldi’s, so I can’t wait to try it!
I love sneaking veggies into pasta dishes! I guess my only cooking shortcut is when I need to clean out the fridge I make a giant frittata, always so tasty!
Julie this recipe was amazing! I forget how easy the food processor makes chopping veggies. My non-vegetarian boyfriend raved about the flavors and said he didn’t miss the beef, win!
Another note – I had a lot left over and used the rest on top of baked spaghetti squash, put mozzarella on top and broiled it for 5 minutes. It received raving reviews and I couldn’t help but be proud about all the veggies!
I am so, so happy you liked it! And thanks so much for taking the time to comment back on this post and let me know, Leah. Hope you have a great weekend!
Looks like a great meal. Thanks for the recipe.
This was a great recipe. I sauteed the onions, garlic, and tomato paste first to give it a deeper flavor. I’m going to try this someday for a vegetarian lasagne. Thank you!
★★★★★
So happy you liked it!! 🙂
I just made this recipe for the first time yesterday and really enjoyed it! I love that it’s a way to sneak a bunch of veggies into such a comforting dish. I’m also looking forward to using it in your roasted eggplant lasagna recipes (another of my favorites). Thanks for posting this!
I’m so glad you liked it, Caitlyn! And thanks for taking the time to report back and let me know!
Hi Julie – Any recs for a substitute for the wine? Non drinker..
Hi Hillary! You could honestly probably just omit it entirely and it would still be okay but this site has some ideas for substitutions that might be of interest: https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/wine-substitutes#section2
I make this all the time in the colder months! I use Aldi grass-fed ground beef instead of walnuts, so the five star rating is based on that. I shred the vegetables in my food processor with the shredding attachment to get them to blend easily into the sauce. The olives add so much flavor!
★★★★★
Thank you for such a nice rating! So thrilled you like it so much!
Hi Julie. I’m allergic to mushrooms and brewers yeast so the mushrooms and wine are out. Do you think it would still be decent omitting these ingredients? It looks so delicious and I really want to try it!