I love a good pasta dish. I also love the great Italian sauces. I made a bolognese recipe with lentils. Now I want to do a ragu. Now I’m not talking about the spaghetti sauce in a jar under the same name. I am talking about the Italian meat sauce that it really flavorful. I was inspired to try this by a recipe I ran across from It Doesn’t Taste Like Chicken for a Lentil Ragu. I love the recipe, but it is missing some nutritional value and some of the basic ingredients of a ragu sauce. These are namely onions, carrots, celery, and red wine. One thing the recipe does have is plenty of flavor otherwise. The nutritional yeast adds tons of flavor and B vitamins. They also do great with the other umami ingredients to replace the meat. However, I will be replacing the tomato and making a pumpkin ragu. I will be adding in the traditional ragu ingredients back in the dish. Here are the original stats:

As you can see the sodium is a bit high.  The vitamin’s A and C as well as protein are a bit low.  The rest looks pretty good.  Here’s what I changed:

• I replaced the vegetable broth with a low sodium variety.
• I replaced the soy sauce with a low sodium variety
• I replaced the tomato sauce with pumpkin puree to increase the vitamin A.
• I added in a carrot to increase the vitamin A and stick to the traditional recipe.
• I am adding in red wine to stick to the traditional recipe.
• I am adding in an onion to stick to the traditional recipe
• I am adding in red bell pepper to increase the vitamin C.
• I am adding in two block of tofu to increase the protein
• I increased the serving from 6 to 8 to decrease the calories.
• I am using zucchini noodles to keep the calories down below 300.

Here are the final stats:

Here is the final recipe

Lentil Ragu

Serves 8

• 1 carrot, chopped
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 red bell pepper, diced
• 1 stalk celery, diced
• 2 14oz packages of extra-firm tofu, pressed and cubed
• 1 can pure pumpkin puree
• 1 1/2 cups low sodium vegetable broth
• 1.25 cup red lentils
• 125mL red table wine
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts
• 1/4 cup nutritional yeast
• 2 teaspoons low sodium soy sauce (gluten-free if preferred)
• 2 teaspoons brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon chili powder
• 1/4 teaspoon liquid smoke
• 1 lb zucchini noodles