My brother’s recipe for meatless spaghetti sauce is simply the best! Thick and chunky, packed with veggies and rich flavor, you will make this time and time again. Fill your freezer with a huge batch of this pasta sauce for many easy spaghetti dinners to come. Vegetarian, vegan and super healthy!
🍝 How to up your spaghetti sauce game
Quick and easy or jarred pasta sauces definitely have their place but when time is on your side, this is the best pasta sauce recipe I know.
This vegetarian spaghetti sauce recipe is a firm favorite in my family, and was developed over the course of several years, across two continents, by my big brother Mikey. It is the thing we always have to request when we get together. Mikey has to make spaghetti.
Instead of looking for ways to hack everything (like I often do), he appreciates that spaghetti sauce making is an art deserving of a little love and care. So he will be letting that sauce simmer for a good few hours, adding a little bit of this and a little bit of that, until it is just so. He tends to eyeball his measurements but one night, I stalked him in the kitchen and we got everything measured and turned into a recipe.
You’re welcome.
🛒 What you need for an epic vegetarian (vegan, in fact) spaghetti sauce
- A quality olive oil (you’re also welcome to throw some salted butter into the pan if you don’t need this recipe to be vegan).
- 5 cans of tomatoes (the 14oz / 400g size). I like to use a mix of chopped + whole. My favorite brand is Mutti but you’re fine to use whatever you’ve got. You’re also going to use some tomato paste to ensure thickness and deep tomato-y flavor. (Want to use fresh tomatoes? I have Spaghetti Sauce Made With Fresh Tomatoes recipe too!)
- Peppers. Roasting peppers add depth of flavor and smoky sweetness and if at all possible, don’t skip this step.
- The basics: onion and garlic, of course, plus dried Italian herbs and red pepper or chili flakes.
- Mushrooms add lovely flavor and some meaty texture. They are cooked with Worcestershire sauce (a fish free blend) here to enhance their umami flavor even further.
- Olives because their complex salty goodness is very welcome here.
- Red wine because it gives tomato sauces such a nice punch, as well as helping to bring along its jewel red hue.
- Balsamic vinegar and brown sugar to enhance the sweetness of the tomatoes.
- Lots of salt and pepper is necessary too!
Also… TIME. We need to let this sauce simmer for 3-4 hours before it’s ready.
How to serve it.
Spaghetti dinners are the ultimate crowd pleasers. You can feed vegetarian, vegan, gluten free and low carb friends and family with a batch of this sauce and the following:
- A batch of spaghetti
- Zoodles or roasted spaghetti squash
- Grated cheese and/or homemade vegan parm
- Garlic bread (make it in your air fryer)
Variations on this sauce
This recipe I am sharing with you was from one iteration of the spaghetti sauce. But in reality it’s made a little differently each time. Some ideas for how to personalize your sauce:
- You can use white wine instead of red.
- Use a couple cans of fire roasted tomatoes (and then you don’t need to roast the peppers, unless you want it doubly smoky).
- You can add some parmesan to the sauce.
- Make it arrabbiata style with the addition of red chili.
- Throw in some mashed capers for extra umami.
- A little bit of cream will add richness.
Not quite right? Here are some alternative spaghetti sauce recipes…
- If you’re looking for a sauce that uses fresh tomatoes, I have this Spaghetti Sauce Made With Fresh Tomatoes which borrows some of the flavor ideas from this sauce but is a little pared back to let that juicy fresh tomato flavor shine. There is also this Butter Heirloom Tomato Sauce (you can make it with any type of fresh tomato) which is more simple and pure, without all the “stuff” in it.
- If you’re looking for a vegetarian bolognese style sauce, well I have options. We’ve done Green Lentil Spaghetti Bolognese (an easy one!), Roasted Chickpea Bolognese (surprisingly “meaty”) and Roasted Vegetable Bolognese (rich, veggie packed and delish).
- If you’re looking for something faster, this Creamy Tomato Pasta Sauce with Capers is a quick and easy sauce recipe which also uses canned tomatoes.
The Best Vegetarian Spaghetti Sauce
Ingredients
- 3 red romano peppers, normal red peppers are OK too
- 1 large white onion, chopped
- 5 cloves of garlic, minced
- 9 oz (250 g) crimini / chestnut mushrooms, chopped
- 1 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce, use a fish free blend to keep this vegetarian
- 1 Tbsp of dried Italian herb mix
- Salt and pepper to taste
- 5 cans, 14oz / 400g size of quality canned tomatoes (I use a mix of whole plum tomatoes + chopped tomatoes)
- A dash or two of red pepper flakes
- ½ cup (8 tbsp) of tomato paste
- ½ cup (8 tbsp) of sliced black olives
- 1 glass of red wine
- 1-4 tbsp (4 tbsp) balsamic vinegar, see notes
- 1 Tbsp brown sugar
Instructions
- Roast the romano peppers. Place them on a baking tray whole and drizzle with olive oil. Place in the oven at 200C/390F for 20-30 minutes until they have softened and wrinkled.
- Meanwhile, start preparing the sauce. In a large heavy pan, sauté your onions until soft and slightly browned.
- Add garlic and chili flakes, saute for a few minutes until the garlic releases its fragrance.
- Add mushrooms and cook until they release their liquid and it begins to evaporate. Add the Worcestershire sauce, dried herbs, and salt and pepper to taste.
- Now add the canned tomatoes, tomato paste, black olives, red wine, balsamic vinegar, and brown sugar.
- Heat and then bring to a simmer.
- When the red peppers have roasted, remove from the oven and allow to cool before peeling, de-seeding and chopping them into small pieces. Add them to the sauce.
- Simmer for 3-4 hours, stirring regularly, until the sauce has reduced to a thick and chunky texture. If you need to serve it before it’s reduced to the texture you prefer, just add more tomato paste. Taste throughout and add any extra seasonings or flavorings that you fancy along the way.
- Serve over spaghetti with a sprinkling of cheese. Bon appetit!
I love making this recipe, especially when we have family around cause everyone can get involved! Definitely worth the wait!
I love making this recipe, especially when we have family around cause everyone can get involved! Definitely worth the wait!
I love making this recipe, especially when we have family around cause everyone can get involved! Definitely worth the wait!
Very easy. Just finished a little while ago. I will be serving this to “carnivores”. I didn’t have canned tomatoes so used fresh tomatoes that I boiled to remove the skin and used some veggie, seasoned broth for extra liquid. I didn’t have mushrooms but I’m sure they will add a good element. This is one of the better recipes I’ve found for vegan spaghetti sauce. It takes time but so worth it. I added some fresh frozen basil but any addition of herbs would be great. Thanks for such a yummy and easy recipe.
Sooo happy that you enjoyed this recipe. Fresh tomatoes would be amazing with it, I need to try that next time! Thanks very much for coming back to share your experience.
Very easy. Just finished a little while ago. I will be serving this to “carnivores”. I didn’t have canned tomatoes so used fresh tomatoes that I boiled to remove the skin and used some veggie, seasoned broth for extra liquid. I didn’t have mushrooms but I’m sure they will add a good element. This is one of the better recipes I’ve found for vegan spaghetti sauce. It takes time but so worth it. I added some fresh frozen basil but any addition of herbs would be great. Thanks for such a yummy and easy recipe.
Very easy. Just finished a little while ago. I will be serving this to “carnivores”. I didn’t have canned tomatoes so used fresh tomatoes that I boiled to remove the skin and used some veggie, seasoned broth for extra liquid. I didn’t have mushrooms but I’m sure they will add a good element. This is one of the better recipes I’ve found for vegan spaghetti sauce. It takes time but so worth it. I added some fresh frozen basil but any addition of herbs would be great. Thanks for such a yummy and easy recipe.
Can you freeze this sauce
Absolutely, it freezes really well.
Just made this this a.m. and the taste is divine. Thank you for sharing.
So happy to hear this! Thank you for coming back to let me know how it turned out! 🙂
Definitely will make again! Initially it was very bitter but I learned you can add a 1/4 teaspoon of baking powder to the sauce. Works like a charm and the sauce definitely is worth the wait! It’s only for two of us but now I have sauce for when we need something fast. Thinking about making some manicotti next week with it. Thank you! 😁
So happy you enjoyed the recipe! Yeah sometimes different brands of canned tomatoes can do weird things when they cook for a long time but glad you were able to bring it back to life with baking soda – great tip!
hello! i don’t really like mushrooms that much. In this recipe can you taste the mushroom?
If you just cut them up tiny they will contribute some flavor but not be too noticeable. That said, you can ditch the mushrooms and just add a little more of other ingredients no problem!
I need a total of 8 cups of sauce to make 2 pans of spinach lasagna. I know you said that it serves 12 so what is the ratio?
Really hard to say because the sauce will reduce, so I don’t know for sure that you would get 8 cups from this batch though I think it would be close. I might suggest you scale it up by 1.5x or just double it to be sure, and freeze the leftovers. Next time I make it I will add an estimate for the final yield.
Hello, can’t wait to make this sauce today, the ingredients look just perfect too. When you say black olives, do you mean regular ones or kalamata olives ? I’m always confused with this ingredient.. Thank you very much.
Normal black olives. You could use kalamata, but maybe use less in that case.
Eating vegetarian and trying to slide into vegan. This makes it sooo easy. It is delicious and hearty. No one misses the meat.
So happy you liked the recipe Denise, it’s such a special one to us so I love to hear that it’s being enjoyed. Thank you for taking the time to feed back! 🙂
This is hands down the best sauce I’ve made, and husband agrees! I was short black olives and just used green ones that were in the fridge, didn’t have red wine so used sake, turned out absolutely delicious. Only thing that drove me nuts was peeling the damn peppers. If anyone’s got a better idea on how to do this please let me know. The skin kept breaking off in slivers and wouldn’t come in one chunk!! Otherwise this is a definite keeper!
I am not a vegetarian, but this is my go-to sauce now because it is so rich and flavorful that you truly don’t miss the meat. If all vegetarian meals tasted like this, I could imagine myself joining the movement. I think the mushrooms are key to this dish because they add an earthy, rich flavor.
Thank you so much for your kind words Mary!
Really good sauce, but I had to add about a teaspoon of baking soda to neutralize the acidity and 1.5 tbs of butter because it was a little too tart for my taste. Thank you for this great recipe.
I am a beginner vegan and was so excited to try this but the ending result was too vinegary and too strong tomato. I’m wondering if the vinegar is needed at all? Maybe that’s what one of the comments about baking powder was for? Personally we had to add nearly 3 tablespoons of sugar just to get the acidic taste down to be able to eat it. For us we want to try this again but with maybe no vinegar, less tomato paste, more mushrooms and maybe some chopped carrots for more” meat”. Had a lot of fun making it though.
Tasha I am so sorry this was your experience. I have had similar feedback on other recipes that use canned tomatoes too, and I think some of it will come down to the individual brand of tomato paste and canned tomatoes, the strength of your balsamic vinegar, and possibly even the cookware you use. I hope that next time works out better for you, it sounds like you have a good idea of how to adapt things, and I am glad you enjoyed the process at least.
Hello there !
Is the red wine, red cooking wine? Or just a bottle of red wine?
Thanks!
Normal table wine! The same stuff you’d drink 🙂
This was the best spaghetti sauce ever! I love meat sauce normally but this tops it! I found that simmering it for 3 hours was too much bc it reduced down way too much. I will simmer for around 2 hours next time. But again the best spaghetti sauce ever. Thanks so much for the recipe!
Yay! Thanks so much for your feedback, I am glad you loved it! Cooking times can vary so much depending on how hot your stove and pans get, I am glad to hear that 2 hours was enough for you because quicker can definitely be a good thing!
Hi Christine, this recipe looks really nice and I’m going to be making it on Tuesday. Please can you let me know what adjustments I need to make ingredients-wise to reduce the portion yield to six rather than twelve; we have a limited amount of freezer space and tupperware. Thanks.
Hi Jack. So happy to hear you’re trying this one. There’s no perfect way to cut this recipe in half because some ingredients are in odd numbers. But I think I’d do this:
Reduce to 3 cans of tomatoes, 2 red peppers, 3 garlic cloves.
Cut the rest of the ingredients in half, but err on the side of generosity when measuring them.
Also cut the cooking time as the batch is smaller, you should only need to simmer for 2 hours ish.
This recipe doesn’t need too much precision so it should turn out just fine. I hope you enjoy it! It’s a really special one for us here.
Hi Christine, thanks for the info. I decided to go ahead and make enough sauce for twelve. It’s simmering away now with an hour and a half to go but tastes very sweet. Do you have any suggestions? Hopefully you see this in time, but no worries if not.
Thanks Christine, it turned out to be a very nice sauce in the end. As it continued to simmer it became less sweet, and the depth of flavour was much greater than I was expecting. It was still perhaps a little too sweet for my taste though, so next time I may try some different brands. For example, the balsamic vinegar I used was really thick and like a syrup, whereas yours looked quite runny in the video. My family enjoyed it as well, and we several portions left over.
That’s great to hear! It does sound like you used a more concentrated balsamic, so I can see how it would have gotten very sweet. I use a mid market brand, nothing fancy (Jamie Oliver brand, if you’re in the UK). I will add a note in the recipe card to flag this up for others. I am always happy to get feedback, so thank you!
Thank you for sharing this recipe! Excellent flavor and texture. I will be cooking this often.
I used a crockpot by the way. I have one that includes a setting for browning; cooked on high for three hours then on low for a final hour when I left for an errand. Turned out really well.
I am so happy to hear that it turned out well for you, and it’s really useful to know that it works in the crockpot too!
Hi, Just wondering if you think it would make a big difference( other then color) if I used a roasted yellow, orange and red pepper instead of all red?
Not at all – go for it!
My family was meat eater until just one month ago. We have now been vegan for one month. As the main cook of my family, I’m enjoying learning how to prepare vegan meals. I have been cooking my own meat spaghetti sauce for over 4 decades and I always thought that my sauce was the best….. That is until I have cooked this vegan receipe. It is so delicious that even my husband who isn’t too crasy about spaghetti sauce, is telling me to make more of it. This sauce is super delicious. It is by far the best spaghetti sauce I have ever tasted. To make it thicker, I added celery and crisp grilled tofu, I also added 1/4 cup more of wine, more garlic and instead of balsamic vinegar (because I didn’t have it), I used balsamic dressing (the kind that goes on salads) and as it was evaporating, I added som tomato juice to it. The wine, rosted red peppers and the olives are giving this sauce an exquisite flavour. I don’t know how you came up with this receipe but it is brilliant. Thank you for sharing it.
When simmering the sauce for 4-5 hours. Can I let it simmer in the slow cooker instead?
You can, yes, but the sauce won’t reduce so much because the mositure doesn’t escape in a slow cooker in the same way. If you’re going to be around, just crack the lid on the slow cooker and stir it regularly.
This recipe delivers. We absolutely love it.
This recipe uses canned tomatoes. You really shouldn’t mislead people by saying it’s from scratch. I’m looking for an authentic made from scratch recipe. Thanks for trying though.
Planning on making this tomorrow. Just wondering about the olives – I am not an olive lover and am wondering if I can just skip out on these or should I just blend them done for the flavour?
What can I use instead of wine because there are quite a few abstainers in my family?
The recipe has a good amount of balsamic vinegar so if you wanted to omit the wine, it will turn out great anyway. Though if you’d like to add a different source of richness, try putting some parmesan style cheese right into the sauce (towards the end of cooking time). It’s not the same kind of richness but it’s just another way to add flavor if we’re omitting one of the others. I hope it turns out well for you 🙂
Great taste and good recipe. Opted for blackcurrant juice instead of red wine (none in the house as we are teatotallers) and final result was well worth the effort and time. Non alcoholic grape juice would work too. Thankyou
This was so good! I skipped the mushrooms, substituted red wine vinegar for the wine (non-alcohol users), used a bit more than a dash of crushed red peppers (we like it hot), used an immersion blender after a few hours, then served it over spaghetti squash. Next time I may try the variation with capers and maybe some shredded carrots. Thanks for the tip on using the best canned tomatoes. I think that made a huge difference (that, and the banging balsamic that I use).
I just made this and is just delicious from my taste test. Seems very thick and I need to freeze it until Easter. What should I add to thin it down just very little.
I’d suggest adding some of the pasta cooking liquid when you add it to pasta, it will make it lovely and silky.
I have made this recipe three times! Our family loves it. I always follow the directions and it has never let me down. Thank you!!!
I don’t like olives at all, nor capers which people advise you can swap for. Any other ideas what I could use please to substitute olives in this recipe for. Other then the olives it looks absolutely delicious. Thank you, Sarah
Hi Sarah, I wouldn’t worry about it if you just want to leave out the olives! It’s not going to make the sauce bland, although without the olives you could look to increase the mushrooms or peppers for a little extra hit of those flavors. Do you need the sauce to be vegan? If not, you could also try adding some parmesan cheese to the sauce for a little extra saltiness.
Thank you Christine, I’m never sure about these things. I shall see how I get on. My brother is vegan so I do need the recipe to be vegan sometimes but not always.
Fantastic recipe! I almost ruined it, had it simmering in cast iron and my hubby reminded me it reacts with tomatoes! Woops! Swapped to a stainless pot and smooth sailing. Delicious! Love the thickness.
I love this and make it all the time. The serving size says 1g. Not sure what that is. Not grams, right? Do you know how to convert that to cups? Thank you so much for posting!
I am so happy to hear this! It looks like there’s a glitch on the site where serving sizes on many recipes say 1g, I do always leave this blank because I don’t weigh portions of my recipes, but I use software to format the nutritional information and recently changed that software and I think it put 1g into a lot of the blank fields. So sorry! It’s on my list to go in and fix all of that. A serving size for this recipe is 1/10th of the recipe.
Do you recommend adding the capers at the end, or before the sauce reduces?
I’d say before it reduces to get the flavor integrated. Enjoy! 🙂
The nutrition information says a serving is one gram. Who eats just one gram of pasta sauce??? No wonder there are so few carbs. Anything is low carb at that amount.
Hi there, I am really sorry about this, it was an error in my software that was putting 1g in the serving size when I left it blank. I have taken that 1g out. The nutritional information was never calculated from that. My software estimated values for the total recipe, and then divides it by the number of servings I have specified. For this recipe I have estimated 10 servings, so the nutritional information is based on 1/10th of the recipe.
The serving size in weight is an optional field which I always leave blank because I don’t weigh the food after cooking it.
Vinegar flavor is WAY too strong. A tablespoon would have been more than enough – a quarter cup completely overpowers all the other flavors. This recipe makes a huge batch of spaghetti sauce and the vinegar is so strong that it’s almost inedible. I’m really not sure how I’m going to salvage this. (I tried mixing in almond flour with my first serving, then baking soda with the next). For others making this, I’d strongly suggest starting with a little bit of vinegar and mixing more in later, if desired. I may end out having to throw the rest of this out.
Yikes, can I ask what kind of balsamic vinegar you used here? Was it a thick, viscose one or was it thin and watery? Since publishing this recipe I have become more aware of how different balsamics can be to each other and the cheaper, runnier balsamic I used to create this recipe worked well (I felt) at that level but I can see how a more expensive viscose balsamic could be too much. Thanks for bringing this to my attention and I am going to edit the recipe now to reflect this range. In the meantime, I might suggest you take some of the sauce out, add a fresh can of tomatoes to dilute the flavor down. Maybe some cream too. But then you’re risking another can of tomatoes and I understand if that’s not appealing to you. I am SO sorry that you had this experience. Your feedback is really valuable.
Thanks, cream is a good idea, I’ll try that next! Yes, the type of balsamic vinegar probably makes a difference. I think mine is probably in the middle in terms of viscosity, but the flavor is very strong; there are probably others that are milder. Thanks for your response!
Wonderful. Makes giving up the mea5 easy. I’m making this again and again.
So happy to hear this! 🙂
Wonderful!
Had to make it in a pinch and added a few grated veggies as it is easier to get them in kids that way.
Loved the flavour and will save for always😊👍