This vegan spaghetti Neapolitan is the business. It’s rich, satisfying and quick and easy. Especially if you cook my chilli mince or meat-sauce substitute in bulk and freeze them in portions. That way any time you want to make this dish, half-the work is already done. Just defrost enough portions, and cook the wholemeal spaghetti for a quick, nourishing filling meal. I can guarantee that any carnivores sharing this won’t believe you when you say there’s no meat in it.
Yes, there are lots of ingredients, but when you cook these versatile sauces in bulk you can afford the time to add them. Having lots of ingredients makes for a complex rich satisfying flavour. It’s also a very versatile sauce or filling for other meal ideas. You can have it on baked potato, nachos, spaghetti, lasagne, moussaka, wraps or even cheesy quesadillas. You could even cut a wholemeal baguette in half, spread the chilli mince on, cover with cheese and grill it!
I’ve put scotch bonnet chilli in the chilli mince because they add a wonderful warmth and depth of flavour. Ordinary chillies lack that gorgeous warmth and flavour. As always, play around with the quantities if my version isn’t quite to your liking.
When serving it you can use fusilli, or tagliatelli wholewheat pasta, but I always think spaghetti goes best with this. I generally add some red or green pesto to the pasta when it’s still in the pot. I then put the chilli mince on top, and grate some Violife parmesan over the dish. Some people like to stir it into the pasta or spaghetti – either way is good.
This vegan spaghetti Neapolitan goes very well with my creamy hummus, and also my garlic bread.
Spaghetti Neapolitan using tasty chilli bean mince
Equipment
- large 11 litre pot
- Wok or actifry/air fryer
Ingredients
- 2 packs of Sainsbury’s mince 454g each pack
- 2 packs of Vegi Deli mince – 300g / or a pack of V-bites and a pack of no bull mince from Iceland.
- 2 kg onions
- 6 medium peppers – red are best.
- 20 g yeast flakes – 4 heaped tablespoons is easier.
- 20 g cocoa powder
- 3 onion stock cubes
- 3 low salt veg stock cubes
- 5 cans tomatoes
- 1 large jar Lloyd Grossman tomato & chilli sauce - or similar
- 1 tube of tomato puree
- 5 cans of kidney beans
- 1 scotch bonnet
- 6 chillies – or more
- 2 whole bulbs of garlic
- Soya sauce – 2 tablespoons
- Whole jar of Sainsbury’s chipotle sauce.
- 1 pack of Spag Boll spices – Old El Paso or Schwartz.
- 1 jar of Sacla vegan red pesto
- 1 flat tablespoon of Onion powder
- 1 flat tablespoon of garlic powder?
- 2 flat tablespoons of smoked chilli powder
Instructions
- Finely chop the onions and being sautéing them.
- Crush the garlic into the mix and stir well and keep sautéing.
- When onions and garlic are nicely browning, add in the cans of tomatoes and other dry & wet ingredients (cans of tomatoes, red pest, tomato puree etc.
- Simmer gently.
- Meanwhile, chop the peppers into fairly small pieces ½ cm approx. size and sauté them in olive oil. At the same time, add in the chillies – chopped quite finely.
- Prepare the various mince types – most of them require a little sautéing in oil – I find the Actifry is best for doing the peppers and the various mince types.
- Lastly add all the ingredients including the beans and peppers to the main pan.
- Add in enough extra water to get a reasonably sloppy mixture – not too wet, but deffo not too dry.
- Put in oven for 45 minutes on around 150° C – stirring occasionally.
- Portion into 275g batches – this is enough for 2 portions of spaghetti Bolognese. This amount made 56 individual portions approx.
Notes
- The key to getting a good result is to use lots of different types of mince - that way you get a really good texture with variety.
- This mince can also be used with tortilla chips to create a really stunning vegan version of nachos.
- You can add more chilli if you wish - personally I find it best to make it reasonably mild, then depending on who is eating you can just add some extra chilli sauce to give extra bite as you defrost and reheat.
- Making a monster amount like this means it's really time efficient - cook once eat many times! It keeps for ever in the freezer after all.
