“Secret” Bolognese Sauce

Attention moms of picky eaters! This Bolognese sauce looks like the traditional version, however, it is packed with veggies! And the best part, your kids won’t know the difference!

My kids are pretty good eaters but I have to say my son is not so into veggies. I do my best to “hide” veggies where I can and being of Italian descent, the easiest way is in tomato sauce!

Here I took the classic Bolognese sauce and instead of leaving the veggies chopped up in the sauce, I pureed them, this way I could add more veggies to this sauce without my son knowing the difference.

I’ve made this Bolognese many times and used whatever veggies  I had on hand, be it spinach, lentils, zucchini, eggplant…the list goes on.  In this version, I used onions, carrots, and shiitake mushrooms.

I prefer shiitake mushrooms because of their rich, savoury taste. Shiitake mushrooms are also rich in vitamins and minerals which support the immune system. I personally find them easier to digest than other mushrooms.

Here’s what you need to make this recipe:

1 vidalia onion, chopped

4 medium carrots, chopped

250g of shiitake mushrooms

1 tablespoon of olive oil

500g organic ground beef (You can sub any other ground meat)

64oz tomato sauce

Salt to taste

Handful of fresh basil, parsley, and oregano, minced

Saute the onion, carrots, and mushrooms in olive oil until softened. Transfer to your @vitamix or high speed blender. Add some water to the veggies and blend on high until smooth.

Using the same pan you sautéed your veggies, brown the ground beef. Once the ground beef is cooked (no longer pink) add you pureed veggies, tomato sauce, salt, and herbs.  Stir to combine. Simmer on low heat for about 1 hour. And that’s it, you’re done! I enjoyed this sauce over zoodles to make it low carb, but my husband and kids had it over gluten free pasta and it was a home run! Hope you guys get to try this recipe, it’s one of my favourites!