Pasta Bolognese Ragù Sauce Recipe – Italian Food 🇮🇹
Overview
An incredibly healthy and delicious slow-cooked Italian meat sauce, which always takes me back to an amazing Italian cooking class at Florence, Italy with Luca Morgillo. This recipe uses lean ground beef and fresh quality ingredients which will also help you follow your fitness goals.
Bolognese/Ragù sauce has been a personal favorite of mine which I’ve prepared in many different variations, but the one we had at the cooking class in Florence really stuck with me especially because of its simplicity and hearty, flavor packed taste.
Be ready to be patient with this recipe as it takes about 20-30 minutes to prep the sauce and at least an additional 1-2 hours to simmer for the flavors to come out in its entirety.
As it takes at least a few hours preparing this dish, it’s also a perfect date night idea for couples or a culinary night with friends or family. As our cooking teacher Luca says, cooking with love is the secret ingredient, so cooking with the people you love or care about will make the end result that much better.
To make the cooking experience even better, be sure to check out the recipe to make your own homemade fresh pasta with only two ingredients as a side-dish for this recipe.
Pasta Bolognese Ragù Sauce Ingredients
- Ground beef – For this recipe we’re going for a healthier option and using lean ground beef with ~5% of fat consistency. Most grocery stores have different fat consistency options, so be sure to check out the label for the correct one. If you’ll not find a lean option at your grocery store, you’ll surely find it at your local butcher shop.
- Red onion, carrot and celery – 3 basic vegetables for the classic Bolognese Ragù sauce. Sometimes less is more and with the ~2 hour simmering time, these 3 flavors will turn into something amazing.
- Tomato passata / purée – any option from the store works, but best would be to choose something with a bit higher quality from Italy. Mutti is the Italian tomato brand I like to use, but most local Italian brands are great.
- Red wine – Always use the same high quality wine with cooking recipes as you would drink it on a normal occasion. It really does show in the final result if you use a lower quality or a cheaper wine in your recipes for cooking. For this recipe I recommend going with a medium / semi sweet red wine of your preference. If you don’t want to use red wine which contains alcohol in your recipe, you can substitute it with alcohol free red wine or 150 ml of beef broth.
- Olive oil – I recommend using extra virgin olive oil for this recipe.
- Salt – freshly ground sea salt or any other cooking salt for seasoning.
- Pasta – Any pasta for the side dish works but it’s always best if you cook your own fresh homemade pasta. If you don’t have the time for that, then you can use any store bought pasta but always check for a higher quality pasta with eggs as an ingredient on the label if possible.
How to Make Pasta Bolognese Ragù Sauce?
- Finely chop celery, carrot and red onion. If you’re using a food processor, then process the vegetables one by one. A fun fact is that in Italy they use a knife called mezzaluna for chopping herbs and vegetables. I tried it out in a cooking class in Florence and I can definitely recommend getting one to make chopping a bit more fun.
- Add olive oil and the chopped vegetables to a heavy bottomed saucepan at medium high heat. Let the vegetables sweat until any excess water evaporates and the onion turns into a translucent color.
- Add the ground beef to the saucepan and break up the meat into small pieces. It’s good to use a wooden spoon to do that, not to make any scratches on the saucepan. Mix well and wait again until the juices of the meat start to evaporate. Be sure to scrape off anything that sticks to the pan for more flavor and better browning of the meat.
- Add the red wine to the saucepan. At this stage again be sure to scrape off anything that sticks to the pan and let the meat simmer until the wine has reduced and the alcohol has burned out.
- Add the tomato passata / purée to the sauce, season with salt and simmer under a lid at low heat for 1-3 hours. The more time you have for the sauce to simmer, the more the flavors come together and the tastier it is. I’ve tested it in different stages and actually an hour of simmering usually does the trick, but 2-3 hours takes it to the next level. Be sure to check and mix the sauce every ~30 minutes or so to be sure nothing sticks to the bottom of the saucepan. The sauce can be considered ready when the sauce sticks to a spoon held upright and not falling off the spoon.
- Cook any of your favorite pasta to al dente, serve on a plate and add the Pasta Bolognese Ragù sauce on top of the pasta. My favorite pasta for this recipe is tagliatelle.
- Optionally add some grated parmesan on top of the sauce for garnish.
- Bon Appétit, enjoy!
Bolognese Sauce Recipe (Ragù)
One of the best Italian recipe is definitely the Bolognese sauce or like Italians call it Ragù. It is easy to make but takes some time to get the right flavors. Trust me it is worth the wait.
Ingredients (4 Servings)
- 1lb. / 500g of ground beef, about 5% of fat
- 1 medium red onion finely chopped
- 1 large carrot peeled and grated
- 1 stalk of celery finely chopped
- 2.5 cups / 600ml of Tomato purée / passata
- 1 glass of table red wine (medium/semi-sweet)
- 4-5 tbsp of extra virgin olive oil
- Salt for seasoning
- Optional: Grated parmesan on top
Nutritional value per recipe (1 serving, sauce without pasta)
395 calories / 29.5g proteins / 18.5g carbs / 20.5g fats / 3.75g dietary fiber / 9.4g sugar
Nutritional value per recipe (4 servings, sauce without pasta)
1578 calories / 117g proteins / 74g carbs / 82g fats / 15g dietary fiber / 37.4g sugar
Pasta Bolognese Ragù Sauce Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 lb ground beef ideal low fat (5%)
- 1 red onion medium
- 1 carrot large
- 1 stalk of celery
- 2.5 cups tomato purée / passata
- 1 glass table red wine medium or semi-sweet
- 4 tbsp olive oil extra virgin
- salt for seasoning
Optional
- Grated parmesan
Instructions
- Finely chop celery, carrot and red onion. If you’re using a food processor, then process the vegetables one by one.
- Add olive oil and the chopped vegetables to a heavy bottomed saucepan at medium high heat. Let the vegetables sweat until any excess water evaporates and the onion turns into a translucent color.
- Add the ground beef to the saucepan and break up the meat into small pieces. It’s good to use a wooden spoon to do that, not to make any scratches on the saucepan. Mix well and wait again until the juices of the meat start to evaporate. Be sure to scrape off anything that sticks to the pan for more flavor and better browning of the meat.
- Add the red wine to the saucepan. At this stage again be sure to scrape off anything that sticks to the pan and let the meat simmer until the wine has reduced and the alcohol has burned out.
- Add the tomato passata / purée to the sauce, season with salt and simmer under a lid at low heat for a minimum of 1, maximum of 3 hours. Best result comes from 2-3 hours of simmering.
- Be sure to check and mix the sauce every ~30 minutes or so to be sure nothing sticks to the bottom of the saucepan. The sauce can be considered ready when the sauce sticks to a spoon held upright and not falling off the spoon. If the sauce for some reason is too dry, add some water to it and let it simmer, if the sauce is too watery, then remove the lid to help it reduce faster.
- Cook any of your favorite pasta to al dente, serve on a plate and add the Pasta Bolognese Ragù sauce on top of the pasta. My favorite pasta for this recipe is tagliatelle.
- Optionally add some grated parmesan on top of the sauce for garnish.
- Bon appetit!
Video
Nutrition (per serving)
How to Pronounce Bolognese Correctly?
If you’re preparing this dish for an event or party then it’s great to know how to correctly pronounce bolognese before introducing it to your guests. The pronunciation of bolognese in Italian is transcribed as “ Boh-loh-ñeh-zeh”.
A good explanation video with examples can be found here.
