O’Sole Mio Vegan Tortellini & Sauces

I recently spotted O’Sole Mio Vegan Tortellini, Rosee, and Alfredo sauce while placing an online grocery order from Metro. O’Sole Mio is a family owned company started in the 90’s based in Quebec that makes a variety of fresh pastas and frozen entrees – they currently have four new vegan offerings, and we’ve tried three of them so far. Here are the packages, the nutritional information as of 07/14/2021, and some of our thoughts on each.

One of the first things I noticed and appreciated was that all of their sauces and pastas could be frozen. I love anything I can stick in the freezer in case we don’t get to it before they expire. Having a few vegan sauces or entrees stored away on days we don’t feel like preparing something ourselves or ordering takeout/delivery a nice option to have.

Plant-Based Tortellini – Beefless

The first item we tried was the beefless vegan tortellini – it’s a generous package of 550g, and it fed 2 large appetite adults, with leftovers for later. I paired the tortellini with a pomodoro pasta sauce from Buca, but I think they would also be lovely with a bit of olive oil or vegan butter. They also have a recipe for Vegan Cheese Tortellini with vegetables, but I suspect it would be delicious with the beefless as well.

Ultimately this was very delicious and something I have already bought again. Price point (at least here in Toronto) is slightly more ($1.76 /100g vs $1.65 /100g) than non-vegan fresh tortellini, but does not feel outrageous. The packaging is made of number 7 plastic, is not generally recyclable anywhere, and that is a consideration for us when choosing what to buy. I’d love more sustainable options, however at the moment number 7 plastic is often used for packaged fresh pasta in grocery stores.

Ingredients: pasta (durum wheat semolina, water, flour, annatto powder), filling (water, textured wheat protein (wheat gluten, wheat flour, tetrasodium pyrophosphate, sodium carbonate, vitamin e (mixed tocopherols)), toasted wheat crumbs, onion, canola oil, carrot, celery, garlic, salt, flavouring preparation (maltodextrin, yeast extract, salt, onion powder, natural flavours), red wine, herbs, spices, caramel colour). contains: wheat

Preparation Instructions (from the package):

1. Bring Salted Water to Boil
2. Add pasta, stir gently, and drain (5-7 minutes)
3. Serve immediately with your favourite sauce
   * cook until internal temperature reaches 72 degrees celsius

Notes on preparation: I’d recommend you use your judgement on preparing the pasta – I know some people try to follow package instructions to the letter, but I had the pasta going with some gentle stirring for more than 8 minutes and some of the tortellini were not entirely cooked through, 10-12 minutes would likely make more sense..
See the package, and a close up of the Nutritional Information. (check out that iron/serving)

We’ll try the sauces another time.

I am bringing back Lazy Vegan Friday’s – if only because I find myself posting about new-to-me vegan packaged products on instagram, and no where else.