- Bolognese is really just a fancy word for meat sauce
but don't underestimate that.
It's meat sauce that's been elevated.
The bold flavors in this dish
up your pasta game a hundred times.
Let me show you how easy it is to make.
Let's get started.
(upbeat music)
So this meat sauce starts out with really basic ingredients.
Nothing intimidating, but what I want to mention
is how it's all going to be cooked together.
So my onion and my celery and my carrot and my spices.
All of this is going into a pan together
and we're cooking it down, low and slow.
The addition of bacon in this recipe is super classic.
So starting with my pan at a medium high heat,
gonna add a little bit of olive oil
and get my veggies cooking down that way.
This is just giving them a head start
so we can cook them through nicely.
So hold onto your bacon.
Don't add that in just yet.
There's a method to this madness, for sure.
Okay, so now that the veggies have cooked down
just for a few minutes on their own,
I'm adding in my chopped bacon.
Really slowly render out all of that beautiful flavor
from the bacon.
And a little tip on using fresh garlic
in any of your cooking.
Always add it in last because it'll cook the quickest
and we don't want to burn our fresh garlic.
So give it a really good stir
and make sure that everything's nicely coated in the fat
and let it cook down for just a couple of minutes.
Now, obviously the star of this sauce is our ground beef.
The ground beef adds a tremendous amount of flavor
with that perfect marbling in there.
I'll just crumble it over my already sauteed
and cooked down base to my bolognese.
And this will all start cooking down together
and start to thicken.
As soon as you start to smell this,
you'll understand what I'm talking about.
This is such a comforting dish.
So once the ground beef has fully cooked,
everything's been happily cooking low and slow.
Now there's not as much tomato product traditionally
in a normal, just basic pasta sauce
because that's not the star of the show in a bolognese.
The star is the beef and then a secret ingredient
at the end of this that we'll talk about.
Now, this is a great opportunity to season
with all of your dried herbs you'd like to use.
Your salt, pepper and then we're going to deglaze
with a little bit of your favorite red wine.
Adding in our beef broth really starts
to bring this sauce to life.
Look at this.
So once I've got a good simmer on my beef broth,
I let that simmer for just a few minutes.
And then this is where the traditional bolognese
starts to happen.
We add in milk.
Milk really adds a creaminess to the sauce
and cooks down so nicely with all of these ingredients.
It just needs covered, a little bit more cook time.
On this final stir of your beautiful bolognese,
this is the perfect time to do a little taste test
just to check for seasoning and adjust how you'd like.
Garnish with your fresh parsley.
And then the secret to this is to add your pasta
straight from the pasta water.
That pasta water really helps bring out the sauce.
It sticks to the pasta really nicely
and it thickens it just slightly.
As you're plating this up,
you can not let this hit the table
without some fresh grated cheese.
I cannot wait to give this the taste
This smells so good.
Let's take a taste of this.
The meat sauce is so flavorful.
All that cheese, the red wine really kind of
adds this highlight to the beef.
It's so great.
I hope you've enjoyed making this recipe with me today.
Don't forget to like and subscribe
and we'll see you next time in the Test Kitchen.