Spaghetti

Ingredients

Onion — 1 small or medium, chopped

Garlic — 5 cloves, minced

Vegetable oil — splash

Veggie crumbles — 6 ounces (see more info, alternatives under Options below)

Diced tomatoes — 2 14.5-ounce cans with juice

Tomato sauce — 1 8-ounce can

Salt — 1/2 teaspoon

Basil — 1/2 tablespoon

Paprika — 1 teaspoon

Oregano — 1/2 teaspoon

Rosemary — 1/4 teaspoon

Thyme — 1/4 teaspoon

Cayenne pepper — 1/8 teaspoon

Nutritional yeast — 1/4 cup

Water — 1/3 cup (we usually just fill 3/4s of the tomato sauce can to rinse it out)

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Spaghetti (or any pasta) — 12 ounces dry


Instructions

1. Cut up the onion and garlic. Heat the oil in a large skillet and fry the onion and garlic for 3 minutes (or as long as it takes to gather the other ingredients; I gather all the spices and the nutritional yeast in a coffee mug). Add everything else to the skillet except the spaghetti, and cook on medium low so it boils occasionally for 45 minutes, stirring now and then. If you like your spaghetti saucier, add more water.

2. Cook the spaghetti in a big pot of water. Drain in a colander and rinse with cool water. Serve the sauce over it.


Options 

1. If you don’t have veggie crumbles (we use either Boca or Morningstar; both are vegan), you can always crumble up two or three vegan Boca burger, which are easier to find in some towns than crumbles


2. Crumble alternative #1: If you don't want to use veggie crumbles, a good option is using about 8 ounces of sliced mushrooms instead. We often do this when we want to minimize the amount of processed foods in a meal.


3. Crumble alternative #2: Some people like TVP (we've lost our taste for it), but you can use it instead of crumbles. To reconstitute TVP, put 1 cup of flake TVP in 1 cup of boiling water. Stir and let sit for 10 minutes. Stir in spices or a tablespoon of ketchup to give it more flavor if you like.


Comment 

Yes, yes, everybody has their own favorite spaghetti recipe and don't need another one. We really do LOVE the recipe above and recommend giving it a try because it tastes just enough like yet enough different from traditional spaghetti to be a good addition to anyone's cooking repertoire. We arrived at the recipe through lots of testing for ease of creation and great taste.