A vegetarian ragù where mushrooms and hazelnuts are the key ingredients. A rich tomato sauce where instead of minced meat we have minced hazelnuts and mushrooms. We are using both button mushrooms (for the texture) and dried porcini (for the flavour). This mushroom and hazelnut ragù is perfect with some homemade fettuccine or gnocchi.

In my home region of Piemonte in Italy, hazelnuts are a staple. They are mostly used in sweet foods, but feature surprisingly often also in savoury dishes. I am a big fan of the round nuts, and love to incorporate them in meat dishes, especially when cooking game, like these venison empanadas. This pasta sauce is completely meatless – it’s vegan, actually – and shows another great example of savoury dish with hazelnuts.

The best thing about this hazelnut mushroom ragù is that its preparation is really simple and features myu favourite kitchen appliance: the food processor. Basically all the ingredients that will go into the sauce are minced in the food processor. This makes this the easiest pasta sauce from scratch you will ever make.

The ingredients

To make this vegetarian pasta sauce with hazelnuts and mushrooms you will need the following ingredients:

For detailed quantities, please refer to the recipe card at the bottom of this post. Read on for some useful tips on how to prepare this vegan ragù.

How to make mushroom hazelnut ragù

Peel the carrots and onions and chop them into 4 pieces. Add them to a food processor fitted with the blades. Add the hazelnuts. Start the food processor and blitz until finely minced. You may need to stop it from time to time and scrape the sides with a spatula in order to get the same size bits on everything.

Set a pot on medium heat and pour in the olive oil. Let it warm up and after a minute or so add the carrot and onion mixture. Keep on medium heat and sweat for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally and checking that it never sticks to the bottom of the pot.

In the meantime, clean the button mushrooms, chop in half if large, and add to the food processor. There is no need to wash it in between, just give it a wipe where the blade attachment is. Blitz the mushrooms until finely minced. Aside, cut the dried porcini into small pieces. They are too tough to get properly minced in the food processor, so a pair of scissors will deliver a better job here.

Add both mushroom types to the pot and stir to distribute the heat. Mushrooms let out a lot of water when salted, so we want to make sure we sweat them a little bit before we add any salt. After 5 minutes, proceed to stir in the salt, white pepper and thyme. Add a splash of white wine to deglaze, you may raise the heat a little bit at this moment, but make sure to keep a constant eye on it and stir around often.

When the wine has evaporated, lower the heat and pour in the tomato passata. I always add a little water to the passata bottle to rinse and add the tomato water to my pot. Lastly, add 2 bay leaves to the sauce. Give it a good stir and bring to a boil. When it boils, lower the heat and let simmer with the lid on and just a slight crack to let steam evaporate. Simmer for one hour, stirring from time to time.

How to enjoy mushroom ragù

This hazelnut mushroom pasta sauce is a great complement to any type of pasta, but in my opinion its absolute best match is a batch of fresh fettuccine. You can use my pasta dough from scratch recipe, if you don’t have your own.

Another absolute match made in heaven for this type of sauce is gnocchi. Gnocchi is a win with any type of ragù, really, as their soft and somewhat chewy texture is the absolute best with the meaty texture of a ragù. And yes, this sauce is meatless, but the minced mushrooms and hazelnuts deliver just a similar effect here.

Neither egg noodles or classic gnocchi are vegan, but if you have a vegan friend coming over, this sauce is vegan, so just pair it with any type of dried pasta you wish. And if you want to try another great combo, try ravioli with hazelnut sauce.

As for the wine to go with it, I usually like to put in my food what I will be drinking with it, so I just open a bottle while cooking, use what I need and keep the rest for the dinner. Actually, if I’m opening a bottle to use in cooking, I will have a glass while I cook. I just adore having a glass of wine while the smells from what’s cooking hit my nose. For this specific recipe I believe in a robust white, nothing too acidic, but with a nice roundness to it. Chardonnay is a great bet (just choose one that’s easy on the oak) or, my choice here, viognier.

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