Seriously Good Vegan Ragu
When making a vegan or vegetarian dish, to replicate its meaty counterpart, exture is important. In this amazing ragu, shredded mushrooms and jackfruit offer the perfect texture and savory flavor. My son does not mind the taste of mushrooms but is not hot about the texture. My daughter loves mushrooms in any form. In this recipe, grated mushrooms offer the deep umami without a chewy texture. Actually, similar to the concept of Duxelles.
My Seriously good Vegan Ragu Story
Today is also International Women’s day. In our house, it is my little woman’s birthday weekend. It is also exams week for her. Hence birthday is simple and limited to time with us. That and connecting with the friends via social media to study APUSH. I actually now know more about US history that I ever thought possible.
Holiday break is also turning out to be a little chaotic. We are reworking college visit plans to accomodate COVID19. This made us shuffle our original college visit schedule. I am just joining them for one of the three visits. The others just are not super relevant at the moment. The downside of this is that I practically do not see them the second week of spring break.
Well, I did a lot of cooking over the weekend to make her feel important. All in all, there are many things just not fun in her universe this birthday. Thanks to her simple and sensitive nature she does pick up little things like my doing a special run to find allspice for her cake. And her cake, I have to share the recipe soon. I am quite excited about how it turned out. Just like this pasta.
The sauce has a great deep flavor, and is done in about 30 minutes, prep time and all. You can do the pasta in the instant pot. Or like me, cook it on the stovetop while the sauce is cooking. And yes, the ragu does well with low stove top cooking.
As with anything that uses wine, get the kind you want to drink, in fact, more that you want to cook with. I love finishing this with something crunchy, but that is entirely optional.
More to thing about along this ilk
Here is a moreish Valhalla Summertime Ragu and then a very flavorful and wholesome vegetarian chickpea pasta.
If you like this recipe and want more ideas, do join my Indian Instant Pot and Air Fryer Facebook group .
Pick up a copy of my Instant pot cookbook Instant Indian here, along with The Bengali Five Spice Chronicles and Spices and Seasons.
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A rich and flavorful vegan ragu, that gets done in under 30 minutes in the instant pot. The tastes are wholesome, satisfying and fairly light.
Ingredients
- 4 tablespoons olive oil
- 3 shallots, finely chopped
- 2 cloves of garlic, minced
- 1 tablespoon dried thyme
- 1 cup coarsely grated or minced cremini mushrooms (about 8 oz)
- 1 medium carrot, peeled and diced
- 1 and 1/2 cups chopped jackfruit (see note)
- 3 tablespoons tomato paste
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1 teaspoon dried basil
- 1 tablepoon soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon freshly ground black pepper
- 1/2 cup dry red wine
- 2 cups of cooked pasta
- 1/2 tablespoon pine nuts (optional)
- 1/2 tablespoon toasted pumpkin seeds (optional)
Instructions
- Turn the instant pot on to saute mode on medium heat. Heat the olive oil for about 1 minute.
- Add in the shallots, garlic, thyme and the mushrooms. All the mixture to cook for 4 to 5 minutes. The mixture releases water and begins to get drier and intensely arromatic.
- Add in the carrot and the jackfruit and stir well. Turn off the heat.
- Add in the tomato paste, dried oregano, dried basic, soy sauce and black pepper and give things a good mix.
- Add the red wine and use this to deglaze the pot. Add in the water.
- Cover and set to 5 minutes of pressure. Do a quick pressure release. Stir well. If the mixture seems watery, turn the saute mode back on and allow it to cook for 3 to 4 minutes. The sauce does not get too thick in this recipe.
- Divide the pasta into 4 servings. Do the same with the ragu. Sprinkle with the pine nuts and pumpkin seeds if using and serve hot.
Notes
For this recipe, I used a 20 oz can of Trader Joe's jackfruit in brine. I drained the jackfruit, rinsed and dried it and then coarsely chopped the jackfruit.
To do this on the stove top. Proceed as described above, you will need to simmer on medium low heat for about 25 minutes stirring occasionally. As needed add more water or wine.