Hands down, this is an amazing Italian Mushroom bolognese recipe. I love bolognese, but when trying to get away from eating meat so much, for various reasons, I had started to learn that in many recipes, mushrooms make a good substitute.
Mushrooms as an Alternative to Meat
This isn’t to say you can use mushrooms to replace meat as a meat where you can fool people. No, not quite. But we’ve used mushrooms in chili recipes instead of meat, along with lentils and with help from some beef broth or bullion, you can really have a nice alternative.
When it comes to a bolognese, mushrooms are a good alternative, but won’t necessarily taste like meat. That’s not the purpose of the recipe. The purpose of using mushrooms instead of meat is to have an amazingly good bolognese recipe that simply doesn’t have meat.
If you tried making it without meat, it just wouldn’t be right or have that bolognese feel.
Types of Mushrooms
Being that I’m not a huge connoisseur of mushrooms, I tend to just use button mushrooms for most any mushroom recipe. If feeling daring I go with portabello mushrooms but still never am quite sure if I should use the fins/gills or whatever those things are.
If you do like mushrooms and know them well, I’d recommend using a nice blend as I’m sure it will taste amazing. I guess I need to do some more research and see what I come up with, however this is my super simplified recipe that I think is awesome (and my husband too). Trust me, I don’t post recipes that don’t get good reviews, and my husband is my #1 honest critic!
Mushroom Bolognese Recipe
Ingredients
- 2-3 TBLE extra virgin olive oil
- 4 chopped cloves of garlic
- 1 large onion chopped
- 2 8oz button mushrooms sliced/diced
- 1 3oz tomato paste
- 1 28 oz can diced tomatoes drained
- 1 15oz can diced tomatoes drained or 8-10 ripe roma tomatoes
- grated Romano cheese or Parmesan cheese
Instructions
- In large hot frying pan heat olive oil
- Over med/low heat saute onion and garlic until translucent (approx. 3-5 minutes)
- Add in tomatoes and mix for 3 minutes over med/low heat - stir occasionally
- Add mushrooms and cook down until they are giving off their juice (approx. 10 minutes)
- Add tomato paste and stir to mix well and simmer for 20-30 minutes
- Cook 1 lb. pasta and when done transfer pasta to sauce mixture in frying pan - making sure to reserve some pasta water should the sauce need it.
- Serve and top with cheese!
