I’d guess Bolognese is one of the most popular pasta sauces, usually served as spaghetti Bolognese. Sometimes I use a pasta shape, such as shells or rigatoni, that greedily gets more meaty sauce in each bite. It’s simple to make at home and I love having a pot of it going on a Sunday afternoon. The time consuming part is long simmering but the longest, at the end, can be left to its own devices. This recipe makes a lot of Bolognese sauce but it freezes beautifully. Cook once, eat several times.
There are many variations on the Bolognese theme and this is mine. It’s hard to mess up and I made a slideshow of the main steps. What’s important is to dice the celery and carrot small and as evenly as possible and you want to end up with twice as much diced celery as carrots.
Bolognese sauce uses both butter and milk for its characteristic richness. If I have heavy cream around, I add a dollop at the end, as many Italians do. Unlike most red sauces, this one uses no herbs or garlic, although I do use a little garlic sometimes, but it’s really not necessary. Wine is the traditional liquid here but I know many people can’t or won’t cook with it so I tried it this time with only chicken broth. It was delicious. Much better than I expected, to be honest.
Ella’s Pasta Bolognese Sauce
2 TB extra-virgin olive oil
1 TB unsalted butter
2 or 3 stalks of celery, diced fine
1 large carrot, diced fine
1 medium white onion, diced
1 pound lean ground beef
1/2 pound ground pork
1/2 pound ground veal
1/2 cup/4 oz whole milk
1 14-ounce can low-sodium chicken broth
– OR –
1 cup/8 oz dry white wine plus 5/8 cup/5 oz water
1 28-ounce can diced tomatoes with their juice
kosher salt and fresh-ground pepper
In a large (5 qt or larger) Dutch oven or pot with a tight-fitting lid, heat the olive oil and butter over medium heat. Add the celery, carrot and onion, sprinkle with salt and sweat them until the onion is translucent but not colored.
Add the meats, season with salt and pepper and cook, stirring often, about 15 minutes. Add the milk and simmer till absorbed, about 10 minutes. Add the chicken broth (or wine and water) and simmer until the liquid reduces and the wine, if using, evaporates, another 10 -15 minutes.
Add the tomatoes and their juice, simmer 5 to 10 minutes to reduce (see photo in slideshow). Lower the heat so that the sauce is just barely simmering. Cover tightly and simmer slowly on the stovetop or in a 325F/165C/Gas 3. oven for 2 1/2 hours, with either method, to thicken and to develop the flavors. If oven simmering, it might look dry at the end of that time but it’s not.
Adjust salt and pepper, stir in a tablespoon of cream if desired, and serve with fresh-grated cheese.
Serves 8 – 10
If you’d like to pause or stop the slideshow, hover over the bottom to bring up the controls.
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{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
Looks lovely – the slideshow’s cool too!
Sometimes I make this with shredded left over roast lamb – it tastes completely different but is equally as good.
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Oh, what a good idea for using leftover lamb, catalangardener. I’ll keep it in mind. I seem to be one of the few in New England who really likes lamb. Believe it or not, many people here have never even tasted it.
I love Bolognese sauce. The best I’ve ever had was at a restaurant I used to work at–they ground up organ meat in it. It might sound gross, but it added a richness and depth of flavor that simply could not be beat!
Your version sounds lovely–I would go the wine route, personally, but it’s very good to know that yours made w/stock was really good, too.
I recently did some research for an article about finishing pasta sauce, and I learned some things that you might like to try: I would suggest putting the al dente pasta in w/the sauce at the end of the cooking time along with some (maybe 1/3 cup or so) of the pasta cooking water, the butter and the splash of cream. Leave it on high and cook down, stirring well, until the sauce is back to the same consistency that it was before you added the water. Finishing in this manner imparts wonderful flavor to the pasta, and the sauce gets a very silky mouth feel from the addition of the starch. Try it sometime. I promise it will take your Bolognese to a whole new level
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I do often add some pasta water back to some sauces (I think I have at least one posted) but I’ve never done it with Bolognese. There might be mutiny if I made it made it take any longer.
The fine result with chicken broth (I didn’t use stock) was a real surprise, especially since I’ve always made this with wine. I knew beef broth would be too strong and beefy but I really didn’t expect the full flavors I got from using chicken broth. It was definitely not a second-cousin sauce.
Mmmmm! I hope you do not recoil in horror when I say I may try this with veggie crumbles rather than the meats
but it looks amazing, and I generally don’t make my own; I use one of the jars from Trader Joe’s (not the jars you posted about a couple of days ago). Wow, slide show!!! Your blog gets cooler by the day!
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Horror, Muse? I’ve cooked with veggie crumbles and veggie balls. I like them. I think it’s a great idea but I doubt you’d need to cook it nearly as long, since the long cooking is to infuse the sauce with the flavors of the meat (and there was more liquid than it looks like in the photos with the shells, but it didn’t photograph well so I stopped trying). I’d do it on the stovetop to keep an eye on the liquids. Think of this recipe as your inspiration, not something writ in stone.
I’m not a huge fan of jarred pasta sauces, although I do use them from time to time like most people. I usually have my own marinara in the freezer, made in a big batch based on this fabulous and simple recipe at Fine Cooking and frozen in portions. I’ve made almost all the variations too and they’re just wonderful. Try it sometime and you might never buy sauce again. You’ll save a bundle too.
Glad you liked ths slideshow. I have at least one other on the blog. Sometimes it just makes sense to use one. Happy cooking!
Muse - I forgot one of the variations for the Fine Cooking marinara is a mock Bolognese. This might be perfect with crumbles:
Mock Bolognese Ragù: In a large sauté pan melt 3 Tbs. butter over medium heat. Add 1 cup finely chopped onion, 2 finely chopped cloves garlic, and 1/4 cup each very finely chopped carrot and celery; cook until softened, about 5 min. Increase the heat to medium high, add 1 lb. ground beef and cook until browned, breaking up the meat with a spoon, 4 to 5 min. Pour in 3/4 cup red wine and boil until reduced to 1 Tbs., 3 to 5 min. Add 3 cups marinara and 1/2 cup cream or milk. Simmer until the sauce has thickened enough to softly mound on a spoon, about 8 min. Toss with 1 lb. warm pasta. Serve with freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano.
umm utterly delish, I would use lambs mince instead of pork and veal, veal on principle, but that would also make it kosher. Spag bolognese is my fav food + garlic bread
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I love it too. A lot of people here won’t eat veal either and I totally respect that, except for those who turn right around and happily buy and eat chickens raised under horrific conditions. There’s a disconnect of principles there. (This needs leaving out the milk too to make it kosher.)
I finally saw Jamie’s magazine – $10!! It looked really good but at that price I took a pass.
Hi ellaella!
This looks good. I’ve made a sort of fast version from Fine Cooking, maybe even the one you mentioned, and we very much liked it. I hardly ever make Bolognese sauce because it cooks so long, but I love to have it. I just cooked a veal tongue, and I’ll bet this would be excellent in this, with modifications.
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Hi, tess! Oh, I’d give that a try and the simmer time would be so much less with it already cooked. Bolognese does need a long time, so I love just sticking it in a slow oven and getting on with life for a few hours. Simmering on a burner that long can be so fiddly with my stove.
Good to see you!