Can I Make The Vegan Spag Bol Sauce In A Slow Cooker?

Our answer

Nigella's Vegan Spag Bol has a rich ragu made from vegetables and a combination of red, green and puy lentils. The lentils add body to the sauce and the vegertables and dried mushrooms add flavour and umami.

It is possible to cook lentils in slow cooker but generally you want to be able to put all of the ingredients in the slow cooker, switch on and walk away. For this dish a lot of the flavour comes from the initial browning of the vegetables and particularly from the slow cooking of the onions, so we would not want to skip this step. If you do want to use a slow cooker then we suggest that you do the first 6 steps in a suitable pan on the stove. Transfer everything to the slow cooker and add the carrots, lentils and tomatoes. You may not need to use quite as much water in a slow cooker, so we suggest using 1 1/2 cans of water and checking the pot about halfway through cooking (adding splashes of water from a freshly boiled kettle, if necessary). Lentils usually take 2 1/2-3 hours on high in a slow cooker, but as models vary we suggest that you refer to the handbook for your particular make of slow cooker.