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Craving Italian? You can never go wrong with pasta with bolognese!! The magic is quite literally in the sauce, no pun intended. Our red wine bolognese is our take on a classic, hearty Italian dish that will keep you coming back for seconds, maybe thirds! It’s full of flavor that makes a cozy dinner for any night of the week.
Everyone has a little different method to making bolognese, but overall it is pretty simple to make. You will just need a little bit of time and patience to make it because the sauce simmers on low for several hours. Which means once the pasta is simmering, you will have enough time to binge watch several episodes of a show or your favorite movie. Win, win!
Because this pasta will need some supervision for a couple hours, we recommend making it on a weekend when you have more time or an evening with no plans. Its a cozy meal for a slow day and you’ll have plenty of leftovers for a couple days after!
Looking for more pasta recipes? Check out these!
Creamy Tuscan Pasta with Herby Breaded Chicken
Beet Lemon Thyme Ricotta Ravioli
Fresh Zucchini Baked Feta Pasta
White Wine Lemon Basil Corn Pasta with Burrata
Easy Weeknight Sweet Pea Spinach Pasta
Red Wine Bolognese Pasta
Recipe Snapshot
- Cook down soffritto (onions, celery, carrots) in butter until softened.
- Add ground beef and Italian sausage and fresh grated nutmeg.
- Stir in red wine, hand mashed tomatoes, tomato paste.
- Simmer on low for 2-3 hours. Stir in milk at the end.
- Boil water in a separate pot and cook pasta.
- Top pasta with red wine bolognese sauce and enjoy!
What is Bolognese?
Bolognese is a slow simmering Italian meat sauce. The sauce starts with a soffritto, which is a combination of onion, celery, and carrots, sautéed in a combination of olive oil and butter. The vegetables add delicious flavor alongside the ground beef and Italian sausage. Dry red wine is used to enhance the flavors of the sauce. The sauce is finished with a dash of milk and or cream that gives the sauce extra creaminess.
What is a soffritto?
A soffritto is a combination of finely chopped onion, celery and carrots that are sautéed in oil and/ or butter as a base to sauces or soups. Our red wine bolognese sauce starts with a soffritto that will add a lot of flavor to the sauce alongside the tomatoes and minced meat.
Can I Use White Wine instead of Red Wine?
Yes, many bolognese recipes use white wine. We used red wine because we felt it pulled out more flavor in the sauce and deepens the flavor of the sauce.
If you’re swapping red wine for white wine, we recommend a sauvignon blanc or a pinot grigio.
What type of pasta noodles are best of bolognese?
The choice is up to you, but we love pasta that can collect all the yummy sauce. We used a tagliatelle, which is a thick, flatter noodle. And the texture of the noodles pair well with the sauce.
Other noodles we would recommend for this sauce would be..
Tips for making bolognese pasta
Time is your friend. This sauce slowly simmers slowly, so it is important to keep the temperature low and let the time give the sauce that flavor. The long the the sauce cooks, the more delicious the flavor will be. We’ve found the sweet spot is 3-3.5 hours.
Hand mash your tomatoes. Grab a bowl and pour your can of whole peeled tomatoes into the bowl and start mashing them with your hands. We swear it tastes better this way, and maybe it’s because they aren’t as processed as a can of crushed. When you mash them with your hands, you’re also actually able to control the texture of the sauce.
Grate fresh whole nutmeg. It gives the sauce a strong nutty sweet flavor.
You don’t need to add much salt or sugar. You will have to salt for a bit of taste but you won’t need much at all. The delicious flavor comes from the ingredient combination and low-and-slow cooking method.
- The pasta is easier to digest because there is less gluten development.
- The pasta absorbs more of the sauce flavor without getting too mushy!
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Red Wine Bolognese Pasta
- Total Time: 3 hours 30 minutes
Description
A slow simmering Italian meat sauce made with a vegetables, mixture of ground beef and Italian sausage, red wine and hand smashed tomatoes.
Ingredients
- 1 onion, diced
- 4 celery stalks, diced
- 3 carrots, diced
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 4 tbsp butter
- 1 lb ground beef
- 1/2 lb spicy Italian sausage
- 1 cup red wine
- 4 tbsp tomato paste
- 1 nutmeg, freshly grated
- 1 28 oz can of peeled tomatoes, hand mashed
- 1/2–1 cup water (to add as the sauce cooks)
- 1 parmesan reggiano rind *optional
- 1 cup milk
- Salt and pepper to season
- 1lb tagliatelle pasta
- Extra parmesan reggiano for topping
Instructions
- In dutch oven over medium heat, add olive oil and butter to pot. Melt butter with oil. Add onions, celery, carrots. Season with salt and pepper and let them simmer down in the pot for 7-10 minutes.
- Once softened, add ground beef and Italian sausage to pan. Break up the meat as it cooks down. The meat will start to turn a grey color once it is cooked. Continue to stir and break down meat as it cooks. Once meat is cooked, grate fresh nutmeg about 1/4 tsp.
- Add 1/2 cup red wine to the pot and stir to remove any bits that have stuck to the bottom of the pan. Let that simmer for 1-2 minutes until cooked down.
- Pour peeled tomatoes into a bowl and mash the tomatoes with your hands to break them down. Pour the mashed tomatoes into the dutch oven with your sauce.
- Add tomato paste, stir into sauce and let it simmer for 20-30 minutes. Turn down the heat when the sauce starts to bubble.
- Simmer very low and slow for 2-3 hours, uncovered. Stir in 1/2 cup water to the pot when the sauce starts to thicken. You may have to do this a couple of times but when the sauce is done, it should not have standing water in it. After 1 hour of simmering, add in parmesan rind (if you have one, if not, just add parmesan at the end).
- When you have about 20 minutes left of finishing the sauce, boil water for pasta. Cook pasta according to package directions. Save 1 cup of pasta water. Strain rest of water from pot.
- Add in 1 cup of milk and stir for a couple of minutes until fully incorporated.
- For serving: Add a couple spoonfuls of sauce to your bowl, place pasta on top, pour a little bit of pasta water on the noodles and mix sauce in with the noodles. This will help to incorporate the sauce into the pasta better. Add additional sauce on top and top with freshly grated parmesan.
Notes
- Make a soffritto: onion + celery + carrots
- Mix of olive oil and butter = enhanced flavor from oil and creaminess from butter
- Use a dry red wine. We recommend a sauvignon blanc or a pinot grigio.
- Nutmeg: You can use 1/2 tsp of ground nutmeg, but the fresh nutmeg with give the sauce a stronger flavor.
- Parmesan rind: adds a lot of nutty, cheesy flavor to the pasta sauce. After about an hour of simmering, add to sauce for the remainder of the time. Some stores will sell just the rind of parmesan in their special cheese section.
- Prep Time: 30
- Cook Time: 3 hours
