Lentil, Mushroom and Almond Ragu

A delicious meal-free ragu alternative that won’t make you wonder where the meat is!

Serves 6

Ingredients

For the ragu

• 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 1 large onion, diced
• 2 sticks of celery, diced
• 2 carrots, scrubbed and diced
• 2 cloves of garlic, finely diced
• 250g mushrooms, diced
• 60g skin-on almonds, chopped
• 100g red lentils
• 100g puy lentils
• 1 stock cube
• 200ml red wine (option to replace with water)
• 400g tinned tomatoes
• 2 tbsp tomato puree
• 20g dried porcini mushrooms, roughly broken
• 3 bay leaves
• 10 spring of thyme
• 3 sprigs of rosemary
• 10 sage leaves, finely chopped
• 10 sprigs of fresh basil, stems chopped (option to save some leaves for garnish)

To serve

• 450g spaghetti
• Nutritional yeast (vegan) or parmesan (vegetarian)
• Fresh basil leaves

Method

• In a large saucepan, add the oil, onion, celery and carrot. Cook for 5 minutes without browning.
• Add the garlic, cook for 1 minute before adding the fresh mushrooms in. Cook for 5 minutes till the mushrooms have released and reabsorbed their liquid.
• Add all the remaining sauce ingredients along with 600ml water. Bring to the boil and then gently simmer for 45 minutes.
• In a separate pan boil water. Cook the pasts for 2 minutes less than the packet instructions.
• Drain the pasta and return it to the pan, reserving some of the cooking liquid.
• Add the ragu to the pasta and stir through, adding pasta water to loosen the ragu if needed. Cook for 1 minute over a low heat.
• Serve immediately with nutritional yeast or parmesan and fresh basil leaves over the top.

Per serving: 599kcal/ 13g fat/ 1.6g saturated fat/ 81g carbohydrates/ 13g fibre/ 26g protein