Classic Vegetarian Spaghetti

This vegetarian spaghetti sauce recipe is easy to make and tastes amazing! Everyone’s favorite food just got tastier.

Want to whip up a pot of killer spaghetti sauce that happens to be… full of plants? That brings us back to basics. Vegetarian spaghetti recipe! It’s full of Italian granny-style flavor with just 8 ingredients. There are a few flavor secrets we’ve been sitting on here, so we thought it was time to share them. You can make a vegetarian spaghetti sauce with plant-based crumbles, but you can add ground beef if you’re cooking for meat eaters. Anyway, you don’t want the pot to end! Here’s how to make an extremely delicious homemade vegetarian spaghetti sauce.

Ingredients for vegetarian spaghetti sauce

This healthy vegetarian spaghetti sauce is very simple: we have reduced the ingredients to the essentials. Here’s what you need:

• Garlic
• butter (or olive oil for vegans)
• Crushed Fire Roasted Tomatoes
• Tomato sauce
• Dried Basil
• Dried tarragon
• Salt
• Frozen Vegetable Crumbles

Let’s talk about some of the key ingredients.

Tip: use high-quality canned tomatoes

Here’s advice that’s probably common sense, but we’ll say it anyway. High-quality canned tomatoes are the tastiest vegetarian spaghetti sauce. There really is a difference between branded tomatoes and good quality tomatoes. Here are a few tips:

• Use canned fire-roasted tomatoes if available. Fire Roasted Tomatoes are flame roasted, giving them a smoother, more developed canned flavor. If you can’t find them, use the best quality tomatoes you can find.
• The texture of mashed tomatoes varies by brand. We love the texture of Muir Glen’s signature fire-roasted crush, but there are many variations. Experiment to find a brand you like!

The flavor enhancer in vegetarian spaghetti: dried tarragon!

The other taste secret of this vegetarian spaghetti sauce: dried tarragon! For years we have avoided tarragon, but now we are 100% convinced. It might not be in your spice cabinet, but here’s why you should add it!

• tarragon is an herb commonly used in French cuisine but also used in other Mediterranean and European cuisines. The fresh herb has a subtle note of aniseed or liquorice, like fennel.
• The flavor that tarragon adds to sauces is otherworldly. Add a little dried tarragon to this spaghetti sauce and everyone will be asking what you added. It’s like a little secret weapon in your spice drawer!
• you don’t have it ? Use oregano. It’s not all that fascinating, but a good substitute for dried tarragon is dried oregano.

On Using Frozen Vegetable Crumbles

In the past, we have not felt comfortable using plant-based frozen crumbles in our recipes as vegan meat substitutes. But things have changed! Today, there are far fewer versions of processed foods that come close to meat in taste and texture. They’re great in something like a veggie spaghetti sauce where the meaty experience is difficult to replicate. Here are some things to consider when buying from the store:

• Look for a short list of ingredients and whole foods. The ingredient list should be relatively short and include foods you are familiar with. Of course, some ingredients are used as binders to hold everything together.
• Consider dietary restrictions. Many vegan meat substitutes contain wheat gluten as the main ingredient: we prefer our “proteins” to be mostly protein. Some types of this product also contain egg, so be sure to check the ingredients of each brand you try.
• Experiment with the texture. Of the brands we tried, we preferred Beyond Meat crumbles: they’re made up of protein and have a meat-like texture. Experiment to find a brand you like!

Notes on using ground beef

If you want to switch up that veggie pasta and use ground beef in this sauce, you can do that too! At A Couple Cooks we eat a mostly Mediterranean diet, so we generally opt for vegetable-based options. For the meat option, be sure to cook and drain the ground beef before adding it to the sauce. You can use 1 pound for this recipe.

Ways to use vegetarian spaghetti sauce

There are so many ways to use this veggie spaghetti sauce…aside from pasta! Here are some recipes you might like:

This recipe for vegetarian spaghetti sauce is…

Vegetarian, vegan, plant-based, dairy-free and gluten-free.

More recipes with a can of tomatoes

Canned tomatoes are the best Italian recipes! Here are some other recipes for canned tomatoes: