Hi all, as per request, I’m sharing my version of healthy mushroom bolognase with everyone:) So sorry that I didnt really take “work-in-progress” pictures because I wasnt planning to post the recipe for this since it’s quite simple.

Let start with the basic ingredients for the pasta sauce:)

Servings: 4

1 cup of pre-soaked red lentil (yield 2 cups after soaking for 6-8hrs)

2 cups of mushrooms (any kind – brown , white button, cremini, mini portobello )

1 medium brown onion

1 – 2 tbsp coconut aminos

3 cloves of garlic

1-2 tbsp of chili flakes

1 tbsp of paprika

1 can of crushed tomatoes

1 cup of vegetable stock

4 tbsp tomato paste

handful of fresh corriander – chopped

4 cups of baby spinach

3 mini chili padi – chopped into thin slices ( you may replace it with 2 tbsp of hot sauce)

4 cups of cooked pasta – any type:)

1 small zucchini

Preparation of Lentils: Rinse and soak 1 cup of lentil for 6-8hrs. Drain and set it aside. (To skip the soaking part, you may look at BBC’s quick way of cooking non-soaked lentils:)

Get your hands working:

Mushrooms: Start slicing up all the mushrooms (approx. 1 cm thick – mushrooms tend to shrink during cooking so you might not want your mushrooms to disappear )

Onions: Dice it up into small bite size. For those that do not know how to dice an onion, here’s a guide from thekitchn which I think it’s really helpful:)

Let’s get started:

Heat 1 tsp of olive oil in a pot over medium high heat. Add onion, garlic, chili flakes, paprika and stir-fry for 10mins or until the onion turns translucent.

Add the mushrooms in and stir fry for a few minutes. Add a splash of water and coconut aminos for extra flavor. Next, add in the crush tomatoes, vegetable stock, tomato paste and bring it to a boil. [Now is the right time to do some taste test before you add hot sauce into the stew. If you like the bolognase to be more spicy, then go ahead and add more chili or hot sauce into the pot:) ]

Add in the lentils (drained) , chopped chili padi, coriander and stir.

Reduce heat to medium low and simmer for 1 hour ( I’ve simmered the stew for at least 2 hours because I like my stew to be thicker and flavorful,) Stir occasionally- every 30 mins

15 minutes before serving , add in the fresh baby spinach into the stew and stir. The baby spinach will wilt quite fast and the texture is just nice.

Add sauce to cooked pasta and you are done!

**I’ve added some chopped mini tomatoes, zucchini and coriander for garnish:) Sprinkled some nutritional yeast as well! (almost forgot to mention about this!) 🙂

I like crunchy zucchini and thus, I didnt add in at the beginning stage with the lentils and all. If you do not mind, you may add it together with the lentils:)

Hope you enjoy this meal as much as I do:)