Vegetable Bolognese

I know with the new year many people are trying to eat more veggies and eating better. So one of my favorite meals to make and it is great to make ahead of time is Vegetable Bolognese. When I don’t have time to make pasta sauce I take a short cut and buy store tomato sauce. The worst and best part of this recipe is the amount of vegetables. You can add a ton of vegetables but you have to chop them all. So the good news is your husband is eating veggies but you have to cut them all up, and if you husband is anything like mine the veggies MUST be chopped in very very small pieces. If he can recognize the veggies he will not touch them.

So I added onions, mushrooms, celery, carrots, zucchini and peppers. I use my food processor to cut the veggies down as much as possible. Once they are at the right size I place them in a super hot Dutch Oven and sauté them in very hot oil. Because the pot is going to be full of veggies you will not be able to sauté all of them at one time, it is just to give the veggies some extra flavor. Once the veggies have been in there for awhile add the sauce. Once the sauce has been added I let it simmer for at least 5 hours that way you know that the veggies are soft and pliable.

Once I am ready to serve the sauce I add one container of mascarpone cheese. This allows the sauce to gain an extra depth of flavor and makes the sauce a lot creamier. This is a house favorite.

The bowl of veggies before I chopped them up.

The veggies in the pot before I had the sauce

The sauce is complete now the last step is to add mascarpone cheese.