I have some friends who only want my bolognese. Yep, you read that correctly. When I invite them for dinner, all they ask is: “are you going to make some Pasta with your Bolognese sauce?” I mean, what are you going to reply except: sure! This actually makes me really proud and happy. And that’s why my Bolognese is called Bolognese, my style!
However, what you need for sure is some quality minced meat, some veggies and canned tomatoes. And some proper freshly grated Parmesan cheese. I am talking the real deal here. Not the pre grated stuff. A block of beautiful Parmesan cheese which gets grated freshly at the table over my pasta. Delicious.
And do you know what is the best about it? It is sooo versatile, that it makes it into my food for days column.
You can make with the Bolognese:
- Rigatoni al Forno– all you need is some Rigatoni Pasta, Mozzarella, cream, and an oven. And if you like, you can add some frozen peas as well.
- Lasagne—I have 2 versions for you, one classical with sauce Béchamel and a cheats’ version with Mozzarella and, yes you guessed right, Parmesan
- Pasta Bolognese with any type of Pasta you like
I always make a big batch of it and freeze it in portions. This way, I always have it at home and am ready to go. It especially helps me when we get a spontaneous visit of one of my sauce Bolognese fans.
And yes, it does take time. But the longer the sauce simmers, the more the flavours will come out of it as well.
We once went to an Italian restaurant and the chef actually cooked the sauce in the oven for 2 hours at 180 °C. Try it, it’s actually fantastic as all the flavours come out beautifully.
I hope you will enjoy our favourite sauce as much as we do!
love
sabrina x
My wine recommendation:
Have a glass of Italian red like an Amarone with it.
Bolognese my style
Just a heads up: I use grams and Celsius degrees in all my recipes, as I’m based in Germany.
Ingredients
- 3 cans chopped tomatoes – 1 can contains of 400g of chopped tomatoes
- 1/2 small celeriac or 2 celeriac stalks cut in small cubes/ brunoise
- 1 onion cut in small cubes/ brunoise
- 2 medium carrots cut in small cubes/ brunoise
- 1 clove garlic
- 1 kg minced meat, I use beef
- 3 Tbsp tomato paste
- 125 ml red wine
- 2 Tbsp Olive Oil
- 2 tsp salt
- 2 pinches ground pepper
- 1 pinch of sugar
- 1 Tbsp Oregano
Instructions
- Cut all vegetables to small cubes- I often use a food processor to smuggle my veggies in it 😉
- add 1 Tbsp of olive oil to your pot and bring the pot to a high heat. You need a big pot for this, if you have a Dutch oven, please use it.
- Add half of the minced meat and let it get some colour
- When the meat is browned and crumbly place it in a bowl to rest, while you cook the other half of the minced meat. You want to get some colour in order to get some flavour.
- Add the onions, garlic and remaining olive oil to the pot.
- Add the chopped celeriac and carrot and sauté them until they have a nice colour.
- Return the cooked minced meat to the pot.
- Add the tomato paste and stir
- After around a minute, add half of the red wine and let it reduce
- Wait a bit and add the rest of the wine.
- Add the cans of chopped tomatoes.
- A little kitchen hack: Do not throw the cans away, but instead add water in one of the cans, swirl it and pour the water gently in the other cans one by one to get all tomatoes out. Then add the tomato water to the pot.
- Add salt and pepper to taste and a pinch of sugar.
- Let it simmer for 60 minutes and if you have time, let it stand for another 2 hours on a very low heat.
- At the end of your cooking time, add the Oregano and enjoy
The nutritional values are automatically calculated – I use them as a rough guide myself when I want to keep track.
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