Italian Vegan Cooking Recipes

You can experience creating these and many other Italian Vegan Recipes in our Vegan Cooking Course in Florence, available daily in a charming country house in the hills with beautiful views of Florence. You will learn to cook vegan delicacies as Tuscans have been doing for centuries!

Part 1

Vegan Sauces: 2 Recipes to Try

Those who love first courses know that the right sauce can transform a simple plate of pasta into a true gourmet dish. To make a dish special, it’s fundamental to choose the right sauce. Seasonal vegetables, aromatic herbs, plant-based oils, and even seitan, tofu or tempeh are the main ingredients that will help you prepare an excellent vegan sauce for your pasta (and other things!), to enjoy every day at dinner or even on the holidays. Here are 2 recipes to try!

1. Vegan ragout with seitan and apples

Ragout is the number one go-to sauce when it comes to the holidays, and it is ideal for any form of pasta, including lasagna. Why give it up when you can make a vegan version of this Italian classic using seitan protein and apples? This recipe calls for you to first make a normal soffritto base of carrots, onion and celery. Cook the soffritto in olive oil before adding some water and then the tomato, as you would with a normal ragu. Add the seitan, chopped in pieces, and let it all cook down for about 15-20 minutes. Finally, when there are just a few minutes’ cooking time left, add the chopped apple. This ragout will surely wow your friends and family, alike!

2. Vegan zucchini spaghetti with white seitan sauce

Another recipe with seitan as the protagonist, due to its versatility and high protein content. Seitan particularly lends itself to making sauces, since its texture mimics that of the meat normally used to make traditional sauces. In this case, we make a sauce that is without tomato, and suggest adding walnut pieces for crunch. Here, instead of noodles or pasta, make zoodles – zucchini is a great stand-in for egg-based pastas since their texture is similar after boiling. Clean the zucchini and, using a knife, remove both ends. Cut each one in half and then cut into strips. Finally, cut them into 3 or 4 mm ‘noodles’ before boiling them in slightly salted water. Cook them for a few minutes before draining and setting aside. For the ragu, put some garlic in some oil and turn on the heat. Add the pre-chopped seitan to the pan and add a little salt. Crush the walnuts and add them to the pan. After about ten minutes, add some chopped parsley, then toss in the zucchini and heat through on a low flame. Enjoy this healthy, vegan alternative to spaghetti!