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The Best Bolognese Sauce in bowl with linguine. Square image.

Best Bolognese Sauce

The best Bolognese sauce is not a tomato sauce, it is a deep richly flavoured beef sauce with very few ingredients & takes it's time simmering to perfection.
Course Dinner
Cuisine Italian Inspired
Prep Time 30 minutes
Cook Time 3 hours
Total Time 3 hours 30 minutes
Servings 10 servings, approximately.
Calories 445 kcal
Author Barry C. Parsons

Ingredients

  • 3 tbsp olive oil
  • 6 ounces finely diced pancetta or bacon
  • 3 pounds lean ground beef
  • 1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
  • 1 tsp sea salt
  • 1 tsp freshly ground nutmeg
  • 4 cups pureed canned tomatoes
  • 2 cups dry red wine
  • 3 cups low sodium beef stock
  • 1/2 cup milk
  • 3 large bay leaves
  • 2 large carrots finely diced
  • 3 celery sticks finely diced
  • 2 large onions finely diced
  • 6 cloves garlic finely minced
  • 2 pounds fresh or dried pasta of your choice
  • 1 cup freshly grated Parmesan or Romano cheese

Instructions

  1. In a large dutch oven or small stock pot over medium heat, add the olive oil and chopped pancetta or bacon. Cook until the pancetta or bacon is almost crispy.
  2. Add the onions, garlic, celery and carrots and cook until the onions have softened and begin to caramelize to a light brown color, stirring often.
  3. Add the ground beef, salt, pepper, and nutmeg and cook until the beef is well browned.
  4. Add the pureed tomatoes, wine, beef stock, milk and bay leaves. Stir.
  5. Cover and bring to a slow simmer.
  6. Simmer very gently, stirring occasionally for 3 to 4 hours. If you feel you need to add more beef stock, that's fine but you may want to turn down the heat if the liquid is boiling away too rapidly. A slow simmer is important here.
  7. The liquid should be almost completely gone at the end and the meat sauce will be quite thick. Stir in the Parmesan or Romano cheese.
  8. Serve over or tossed with cooked pasta topped with lots of freshly grated Parmesan or Romano cheese.

Recipe Notes

Nutritional values are for the sauce alone.


The nutritional information provided is automatically calculated by third party software and is meant as a guideline only. Exact accuracy is not guaranteed. For recipes where all ingredients may not be used entirely, such as those with coatings on meats, or with sauces or dressings for example, calorie & nutritional values per serving will likely be somewhat lower than indicated.