Lentil Bolognese

New Year's Day. 2024. I am twenty-eight years old and last year at this time I was thirty-nine weeks pregnant sitting on the couch watching the neighborhood cheer in the new year from the window. Now I am twenty-eight years old and I have two children who are eleven months old and who are asleep in the next room and who are, by the measure of all available evidence, fine and healthy and themselves.

I do not make resolutions. I made one several years ago and it worked out in a way I did not expect — I resolved to apply for the graduate teacher certification program at Northeastern, which I did, which is why I am a teacher — and since then I have been wary of resolutions because I do not know what I am walking into and I prefer to meet the year as it comes rather than as I have planned for it to be.

What I do on New Year's Day is make pork and sauerkraut, which is a Polish tradition that Babcia Rose taught me and which is supposed to bring luck for the year. I made it in the slow cooker: pork shoulder from the Aldi family pack, two cans of sauerkraut, caraway seeds, a little brown sugar. By the time the babies woke from their nap the apartment smelled like luck and January and something my family has always done, and I put them in their highchairs and ate my pork and sauerkraut over the kitchen counter and thought: we made it through that year. Whatever this year is, we made it through that one.

Ryan stayed up until midnight and I did not. He texted me a photo of the fireworks from the back porch and it was a good photo. He came to bed at 12:30 and I was asleep and he did not wake me, which is love in its purest practical form. January first. Here we go.

The pork and sauerkraut is Babcia Rose’s recipe, and it belongs to that story — but the impulse behind it, the need to cook something slow and warm and deeply savory on the first day of a new year, is something I carry into every season. This lentil bolognese is what I make when I want that same feeling on an ordinary Tuesday: a sauce that builds in the pot while life happens around it, earthy and rich and ready when you are. If you fed it to someone over a kitchen counter at the end of a hard year, they would feel taken care of. That is exactly the point.

Prep Time: 15 minutes | Cook Time: 45 minutes | Total Time: 1 hour | Servings: 6

Ingredients

1 cup brown or green lentils, rinsed and picked over
12 oz tagliatelle or spaghetti
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium yellow onion, finely diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 medium carrots, finely diced
2 stalks celery, finely diced
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 can (28 oz) crushed tomatoes
1 cup vegetable broth
1/2 cup dry red wine (or additional broth)
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon dried basil
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes (optional)
Salt and black pepper to taste
Fresh parsley or basil, chopped, for serving
Grated Parmesan or nutritional yeast for serving

Instructions

Cook the lentils. Combine rinsed lentils with 2 1/2 cups water in a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer uncovered for 20–25 minutes until just tender but not mushy. Drain and set aside.
Build the base. Heat olive oil in a large, heavy-bottomed pot or Dutch oven over medium heat. Add onion, carrots, and celery with a pinch of salt. Cook, stirring occasionally, for 8–10 minutes until softened and beginning to caramelize.
Bloom the aromatics. Add garlic, tomato paste, oregano, basil, thyme, and red pepper flakes. Stir and cook for 2 minutes until the tomato paste darkens slightly and the mixture is fragrant.
Deglaze and simmer. Pour in the red wine and scrape up any browned bits from the bottom of the pot. Let bubble for 1 minute, then add crushed tomatoes and vegetable broth. Stir to combine and bring to a gentle simmer.
Add lentils and cook down. Stir in the cooked lentils. Simmer uncovered over medium-low heat for 15–20 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the sauce thickens and the flavors meld. Season generously with salt and black pepper.
Cook the pasta. While the sauce finishes, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Cook pasta according to package directions until al dente. Reserve 1/2 cup pasta water before draining.
Combine and serve. Toss drained pasta with the bolognese, adding a splash of reserved pasta water if needed to loosen the sauce. Serve in wide bowls topped with fresh parsley or basil and Parmesan or nutritional yeast.

Nutrition (per serving)

Lentil Bolognese — The Warmth You Come Home To