Dairy Free Bolognese Sauce | Garlic Free

Traditional bolognese sauce made allergy friendly! This dairy free bolognese sauce is hearty, comforting, and perfect for cold weather. Serve over your favorite pasta and top with vegan parmesan for a delicious Top 9 allergen free meal!

Americanized Italian food can be a minefield for someone with dairy or garlic allergies. We’ve only found one Italian restaurant about two hours from our house that we can go to, because the chef is super amazing about allergy safety. But with my husband being part Italian, we can’t go without pasta in this house.

My dairy free bolognese is an adaptation of Marcella Hazan’s famous bolognese sauce. There is no garlic in the original recipe, and I eliminated the onion as well. I also eliminated the butter and use full-fat coconut milk instead of the traditional whole milk, as the fat content and slight sweetness works really well to counter the acidity of the wine and tomatoes. You don’t taste coconut in the final dish, I promise! I fully acknowledge that this is not the traditional recipe, and if you prefer making that version, here’s a link to the original.

This recipe makes enough sauce for at least two pounds of pasta. You can easily cut this recipe in half if you don’t want that much! But it stores and freezes really well, so it’s perfect for meal prep or stocking your freezer. It does take a while to cook, but most of the time is letting the sauce bubble away on the stove while you do other things.

Recipe Tips

• Use a deep, heavy bottomed pot for this recipe, like a cast iron Dutch oven or heavy stock pot. A skillet is too shallow, and the liquid will evaporate too quickly for the flavors to develop. If you don’t have a heavy pot, you’ll want to keep the heat a bit lower and stir more frequently to prevent hot spots and keep the sauce from burning on the bottom.
• Don’t try to rush it! Make this on a weekend when you have 2-3 hours to stir the sauce while you take care of other chores. Or have a Mario Kart battle.
• When you get to the step where you add the coconut milk, don’t chicken out. It will look like the most disgusting thing you’ve ever cooked. I actually photographed this step, but was afraid that if I posted a photo no one would ever make this. Stay the course. Have a drink of the white wine you’ll be adding in the next step.
• Depending on your stove and pot, the tomatoes may reduce too quickly before the sauce reaches its dark red color. Feel free to add 1/4 of water or so if the sauce looks like it’s getting too dry.
• Don’t try to add unnecessary herbs or spices. Salt, pepper, and nutmeg is truly all you need. I get it, because I have a tendency to try and add all sorts of things to make up for the lack of garlic and onion, but just trust me on this one. You don’t need it. Put the basil down.

Make Dairy Free Bolognese Allergy-Friendly for You!

As written, this recipe is dairy free, gluten free, garlic free, and top 9 allergen free. It does contain coconut, so if you’re not able to have that I would try substituting your favorite vegan unsweetened creamer in its place. As always, make sure you read the ingredient labels for your tomatoes and white wine. We don’t require vegan wine in our house, but there are quite a few great options out there to 100% guarantee that your wine doesn’t use casein in the clarifying process. And if you cannot tolerate wine, you could use chicken broth but the flavor will definitely not be the same. I might recommend trying my Quick and Easy Spaghetti Sauce instead, which contains no alcohol! I can easily find plain crushed and whole tomatoes in our local stores, but they can often contain garlic, herbs, or other added ingredients.