Description
Bolognese is a rich, thick meat sauce from Italian cuisine and sometimes called a ragu. What distinguishes it from other meat sauces is the high ratio of meat to tomato that makes it very thick and rich.
Ingredients
Units
Scale
—Soffrito
- 1 large onion, roughly chopped
- 2 large carrots, roughly chopped
- 3 Celery stalks, roughly chopped
- 8 to 10 cloves garlic
- 2 or 3 fresh serrano chile (optional)
- A splash of oil for the pan
- 1/2 tsp salt
—Meat cut into small pieces:
- 1 lb ground beef
- 1 lb ground lamb
- 1 lb spicy pork sausage
—Everything else
- 1 dried serrano or morita, ground (1/2 tsp chile powder would work)
- 2 cups tomato paste (give or take)
- 3 cups good red wine
- 3 bay leaves
- 1 bunch of thyme
- 1/2 cup Water
Instructions
- Put the onion, carrot, celery, garlic and serranos (if Using) into the bowl of a food processor. Pulse until smooth.
- Heat the oil in a stockpot over medium low heat. Add the mixture from the food processor and 1/2 tsp salt. Stir well and cook for 20 minutes until most of the water has cooked out.
- Add the meat. Stir well and chop it into small pieces with a wooden spoon or spatula. Add a generous sprinkle of salt. Cook this for 20 minutes, stirring frequently, to brown all of the meat.
- Add the ground hot chile and tomato paste. Stir in thoroughly and cook for 5 minutes.
- Add a generous sprinkle of salt and then add the wine, thyme, bay leaves and 1/2 cup water.
- Turn the heat down and cook on low for 5 to 6 hours. Stir occasionally and check to make sure it has enough liquid. You don’t want the pot to dry out but you don’t want it to get too soupy. It should be like a thick meat lava when it’s done.
- Serve over (gluten free) pasta with parmesan cheese.
Notes
Spaghetti Squash is another good choice for GF or lower carbs.Â
This sauce is also great for lasagne–you can use thin slices of zucchini as a substitute for pasta.
This sauce freezes really well. We put in a couple containers to use for future easy dinners.
