Italians are not womanizers, and spaghetti Bolognese is not pasta! (+ Recipe)

What is usually included in Bolognese sauce?

There is no single recipe for Italian bolognese sauce. Ratios vary, but the main ingredients remain the same. He contains:

• onion;
• celery;
• carrot;
• chopped meat;
• tomatoes;
• milk;
• White wine.

Onions, celery and carrots

A combination of finely diced onions, celery and carrots, sauteed in olive oil and seasoned with salt and pepper, is called soffritto in Italian cooking. It is the basis of many dishes in Italy, including Bolognese sauce.

The onions, celery and carrots are cut into 0.5 x 0.5 cm pieces. The uniformity of the soffritto means that the ingredients will cook evenly and create a more pleasant texture in the finished sauce.

Chopped meat

Traditionally, Bolognese sauce is made from minced beef, less often from pork. It is better to use low-fat minced meat. Some versions of the recipes often include several types of minced meat, including chicken.

A successful combination is obtained from minced meat of three types, taken in equal parts:

• Veal - rich in gelatin, but weakly flavored. Gives the finished sauce a silky, smooth texture.
• Pork is high in fat and has a weak flavor. Emulsifies well in the finished sauce.
• Lamb has a rich flavor but a fairly rough texture.

Combining these types of minced meats results in a flavorful, rich, and silky Bolognese sauce.

Tomatoes

Surprisingly, tomatoes are NOT the main ingredient in Italian Bolognese sauce. The authentic recipe is very different from the bright red tomato sauce that most of us have tried. It's more of a meaty, rich, creamy sauce. Italian Bolognese contains a small amount (relative to volume) of tomatoes, as it remains primarily a meat sauce.

You can use diced or pureed tomatoes. For a Bolognese recipe, it is not necessary to choose smooth and beautiful fruits.

If you have canned whole tomatoes, puree them using a hand mixer, blender or food processor.

Milk

Most of us aren't used to adding milk to meat sauces, but in bolognese it's the ingredient that adds richness and tenderizes the meat.

It also changes color, becoming more orange than red. Use whole milk (3.2%) or partially skimmed (2%).

Seasonings

The classic Bolognese sauce recipe contains almost no aromatic herbs or spices. Only bay leaf, nutmeg or red pepper flakes are added, but most often the only seasonings are salt and black pepper.

How to make pasta sauce with minced meat and tomatoes?

Ingredients:

• bulb;
• carrot;
• a slice of celery root, 50 g, or parsley root;
• 1 zucchini;
• several sprigs of marjoram;
• olive oil;
• 150 - 200 g each of lean pork and beef;
• 800 g canned tomatoes in their own juice;
• 100 ml high fat cream (for whipping);
• spices.

Preparation:

1. Peel all the vegetables, finely chop the onion, carrots, celery and zucchini into 0.5 cm cubes.

2. Wash the marjoram sprigs, tear off the leaves and chop.

3. Wash the meat and grind it in a meat grinder, placing a rack with large holes on it, or chop it finely.

4. Fry the onion in oil until it begins to soften, add celery and carrots, fry until the carrots are almost done.

5. Add the minced meat to the vegetables and fry until it becomes crumbly.

6. Pour tomatoes with juice into the pan, wait until it boils, simmer for 8 - 10 minutes. If the fruits are large, it is advisable to cut them.

7. Pour marjoram and zucchini into the pan, pour in the cream, after boiling, add salt and pepper, taste and, if necessary, add sugar.

Bolognese sauce is a thick meat stew stewed for a long time with vegetables. The meat can be used either as minced meat or simply cut into pieces. During prolonged simmering, the meat itself will disintegrate into fibers.

By the way, you can serve not only spaghetti with Bolognese sauce, but also any pasta or stuff cannelloni. Bolognese sauce is also used in lasagna.

One of the features of Bolognese sauce is long stewing, which only makes it tastier!

I don't know yet what I'll serve the Bolognese with. While the sauce is simmering, I’ll decide whether to make lasagne with it or serve it with penne.

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To prepare the Bolognese sauce, I prepared the necessary products:

Difficulty of preparation

: average

Cooking time:

2 hours

It’s better to make minced meat yourself. The sauce is made from either beef or a mixture of beef and pork. I will use ready-made homemade minced meat.

Heat the sunflower oil in a frying pan over medium heat, add the minced meat and fry, stirring and breaking up the lumps with a spatula. Salt and pepper the minced meat and put it in a separate bowl.

During the time it took for the minced meat to be fried, I started preparing the vegetables. I peeled the carrots and onions, trimmed the limp edges from the celery stalks and removed the dense threads from the outer surface of the stalk. I cut all the vegetables into cubes.

In the frying pan where the minced meat was fried, I fried finely chopped bacon. Added vegetables and fry the mixture for 3-5 minutes.

Add the minced meat to the fried vegetables and bacon and mix everything together.

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Author of the publication

Olesya Fisenko

Olesya Fisenko

Author and founder of the project “Nehudeem.ru” - a culinary portal about simple and tasty food. With the help of the site, it unites all lovers of homemade food. Together with other food bloggers, he shares delicious recipes with detailed step-by-step descriptions. She loves to cook and puts her culinary knowledge into recipes. Every day we try to make this project even more convenient and interesting. Mom of Anya and Kirill.

Step 1

Today we will tell you how to prepare an amazingly delicious Italian dish Pasta alla Bolognese. The Bolognese sauce itself

is an excellent preparation that can be stored in the refrigerator for several days and used not only in tandem with pasta, but also for cooking, for example, lasagna. Although it takes more than two hours to prepare, the result is worth the effort and time spent. Pour 1-2 tbsp into the pan. olive oil and add butter. Place on low heat and wait for the butter to melt. Then, add thinly sliced ​​pancetta and leave it to simmer for 5-7 minutes.

Step 2

Chop the onion and celery very finely and fry until soft (the vegetables should be fried, but not change their color much).

Step 3

Pass the pork and beef through a meat grinder twice and add to the onion. Immediately increase the heat to maximum and fry the minced meat over high heat, actively breaking up the lumps with a wooden spatula. This must be done until the minced meat absorbs back all the juice that it released.

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Step 4

Pour in 100 ml. milk and stir the minced meat vigorously again until it absorbs all the milk. We do the same with wine: pour in and stir until it is absorbed into the minced meat.

Step 5

While the minced meat is cooking, prepare the tomatoes. They need to be washed and a cross-shaped cut made with a sharp knife. Place each tomato one at a time in a bowl of boiling water for 30 seconds and remove. Thanks to this procedure, it will be very easy for us to peel them. Cut the peeled tomatoes into small cubes.

Step 6

When the minced meat has absorbed all the wine, move it to the side and place the tomato paste next to it. Fry it for a couple of minutes, then add basil, ground black pepper and a mixture of Italian herbs and stir the contents of the pan. Add chopped tomatoes, garlic and actively stir the sauce again over medium heat. Once the tomatoes are soft, it's time to begin the sautéing process.

Step 7

Simmer Bolognese sauce

it is necessary on the smallest fire on the smallest burner. Pour broth into the sauce if you have it (beef, on the bone). If there is no broth, you can get by with boiling water. Add salt and leave the sauce to simmer for two hours under the lid (stirring it every 10-15 minutes). After two hours, turn off the sauce and let it “rest” for 10 minutes under the lid. During this time, boil the spaghetti, drain it in a colander and place it on plates.

Step 8

Spread Bolognese sauce

and serve grated Parmesan cheese separately.

• 

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Step 9

Author of the publication

Olesya Fisenko

Classic Italian Bolognese sauce recipe

You can simply mix ground beef with tomato paste, fry it and call the dish “Bolognese sauce.” But there is a certain, completely unique taste that can only be achieved if you follow the classic cooking recipe exactly and step by step. Real bolognese sauce takes several hours to prepare. It gets better the longer you cook it, so don't rush it.

• Yield: 12-15 servings
• Per 1 serving: calorie content – ​​367 calories, fat – 10.6 g, cholesterol – 54.9 mg, sodium – 391.6 mg, carbohydrates – 48.5 g, fiber – 5.9 g, sugar – 9.3 g , protein – 22.7 g.

Ingredients:

• 1 tbsp. l. butter;
• 1 tbsp. l olive oil;
• 1 large carrot, finely diced;
• 1 medium-sized white onion, finely chopped;
• 1 stalk of celery, cut into cubes;
• 6 cloves garlic, minced in a garlic press;
• 500 g minced beef;
• 400 g fresh tomatoes, diced or chopped in a food processor;
• 1 glass of whole milk;
• 0.5 tbsp. dry white wine (eg Chardonnay);
• 0.5 tbsp. beef broth;
• juice of one lemon;
• a pinch of nutmeg;
• 2 bay leaves;
• salt and pepper to taste;
• parmesan cheese for serving.

How to make bolognese sauce step by step:

1. Preheat the oven to 200ºC.
2. Place the tomatoes on a baking sheet, drizzle with oil and salt.
3. Bake in the oven for 20 minutes or until tender and crispy.
4. Remove the tomatoes and set aside.
5. Once cooled, puree them in a blender to make tomato sauce.
6. Heat a deep frying pan over medium heat, pour in the vegetable oil and immediately add the butter. Once melted, add carrots, celery and onion.
7. Stir-fry until the vegetables are soft, about 5 minutes.
8. Add garlic and simmer for another minute.
9. Add ground beef to skillet and stir in roasted vegetables.
10. Once the meat is cooked, start adding all the other ingredients.
11. Stir and simmer for 2-3 hours over low heat.
12. Remove the bay leaf and serve the prepared Bolognese sauce with pasta and grated Parmesan cheese.

Bolognese - 25 delicious homemade recipes

A variety of bolognese recipes are based on meat tomato sauce. By adding different types of minced meat, new herbs, spices, seasonings, you can get many variations of this dish. It is prepared for one time or several servings at once, which are easily stored in the freezer for three days. Served with a variety of pasta, in the classic recipe it is spaghetti or Italian pasta.

The five most commonly used ingredients for bolognese are:

To prepare a classic version of Bolognese, prepare the following products:

• durum wheat pasta;
• minced pork and beef;
• tomatoes or tomato paste;
• vegetables – celery, carrots, onions;
• spices – garlic, salt, pepper;
• milk;
• wine;
• meat broth;
• olive oil.

Take the hard variety of pasta, this will allow you to get a traditional dish and fully reveal the taste of the sauce. Minced beef will make it nourishing and aromatic, and pork will make it tender, melting in your mouth. Sometimes other types of minced meat are added, for example, veal.

Bolognese takes a long time to prepare, but most of the time is spent on stewing - at least two hours. The products themselves are added in the following sequence.

1. Fry finely chopped carrots and onions in olive oil, add crushed and chopped garlic.
2. Place the minced meat and knead it intensively, frying at the same time so that there are no lumps. Fry until a golden crust forms on the minced meat.
3. Add milk and wait until it is completely absorbed into the meat and excess moisture evaporates.
4. Add wine in the same way.
5. Add tomato paste or chopped tomatoes.
6. Pour in the broth; it should cover the minced meat by a couple of centimeters.
7. Cover with a lid and simmer over low heat for at least two hours.

The readiness of the sauce is determined by its appearance. The Bolognese should become thick, smooth and shiny.

Five fastest Bolognese recipes:

A few cooking secrets:

• cut the vegetables smaller so that they dissolve during the stewing process;
• add milk and wine strictly one by one, wait until the milk is completely dissolved in the sauce, only then add wine;
• Sprinkle the finished dish with grated Parmesan - it’s tastier.

Instructions for making bolognese sauce in a slow cooker

If you are making bolognese sauce in a slow cooker, reduce the amount of liquid used in the classic recipe:

• 0.5 tbsp. milk;
• 200 g diced or crushed tomatoes;
• ¼ cup beef broth.

You also need to add 60 ml of tomato paste. It is necessary to enhance the taste of tomatoes, which will be lost from the slow process of boiling and thickening in a slow cooker.

All other ingredients are the same as in the classic stove top recipe.

How to do:

1. Heat butter and vegetable oil in a slow cooker and stir until butter melts.
2. Add onion, carrots, celery, garlic and ½ teaspoon salt and cook on LOW for 5 minutes.
3. Pour in the milk and tomatoes, beef broth, tomato paste and a little ground black pepper. (Do not add more salt at this point; wait until cooking is complete to taste and adjust saltiness if necessary.) Cover and cook on SAUTE for about 6 hours.
4. If the sauce still seems thick and thin after this period of time, continue cooking for about 2 hours, or remove the lid and simmer on low for about 30 minutes or until the desired consistency is reached.