How to make Spaghetti Bolognese Sauce

Pasta is a general name for all staple foods made from durum wheat flour (semolina) mixed with water or egg and they are usually processed into different shapes and sheets such foods include: couscous, macaroni, fusilli, lasagna, and spaghetti. These are totally different from instant noodles which are made from palm oil, wheat flour, and salt. Spaghetti is another type of pasta recipe which can be prepared in different ways, such as boiling or frying or baking, a lot of people have their common ways of enjoying spaghetti dishes, some prefer to serve spaghetti with sauce, stew or cook it in broth and others to prepare their spaghetti with creamy cheese, egg, sausage, ground beef, pork or turkey, shrimps, tuna, salmon and with different kinds of sea foods among other things, in some cases, people make pasta with salad and it is commonly called pasta salad.

Spaghetti basically is a simple dish that can be served as breakfast lunch or dinner. One good thing about spaghetti is that apart from being cooked in broth, it can be boiled white and serve with sauce. Spaghetti sauces come in different forms (ingredients, texture, and taste). In as much as I love my country foods so much, I still love to try other dishes outside my country no matter the taste and the appearance of the dish. In this case, we are going to be considering a particular Italian sauce used for eating boiled spaghetti. I am a food lover; I research more on foods and their methods of preparation. On my search for foods, I came across this particular recipe (Bolognese sauce) on YouTube while going through some clips and I have come to realize that there are many ways in which one can serve boiled spaghetti.

Bolognese sauce is one of the sauces used for eating spaghetti and it is prepared with some unique ingredients, which we are going to look into. Before then lets talk more on Bolognese sauce.

What is Bolognese Sauce?

Bolognese sauce used for eating spaghetti

Bolognese sauce is Italian tomato sauce prepared with much minced meat; it is literally called ragu alla bolognese which is literally interpreted as a meaty sauce by the Italians. This sauce is used for different pasta, apart from spaghetti, the original pasta for this sauce is tagliatelle, and however, other pasta dishes are good to go with it.

Bolognese sauce is prepared with both canned tomato paste and chopped fresh tomatoes and liquids like wine, broth or tomato juice are often used. In the cooking of bolognese sauce, bay leaves and celery are considered as important flavourful ingredients to the sauce.

Spaghetti Bolognese on the other hand is the cooked or boiled pasta dish served with the tomato and ground beef-based sauce. This is often prepared by adding much of the bolognese sauce on top of the boiled spaghetti to serve according to Italian tradition, rather than mixing or cooking the spaghetti in the sauce directly and grated cheese is often used as topping for bolognese sauce. The common name for this recipe is Bolognese sauce or spaghetti sauce.

The Bolognese sauce has so many versions; sometimes it is prepared with ground pork or ground beef or with both beef and pork. With the many versions of Bolognese sauce, other ingredients like basil, thyme sprig, garlic, rosemary, carrots and celery are often used for it. In making of bolognese sauce meat or any kind of broth can serve as a substitute to wine for those that don’t really like wine and for the bacon, it can just be skipped out.

You can still make simple spaghetti bolognese with few ingredients and end up with a great taste. What you need to do is to decide whether you want to make use of meat balls or ground beef, you need bay leaves or substitute that with celery and basil. The ingredients for spaghetti bolognese are listed below, feel free to add yours or reduce from the below. Also, depending on your quantity of ingredients the spaghetti sauce may remain, you can keep that in the freezer or use it to serve yam or potato chips, if you prefer.

Bolognese sauce ingredients

• 120g canned tomato paste
• 10 ripe fresh tomatoes
• 500g minced beef (beef or pork)
• 400g spaghetti (1 pack)
• 1 cup wine or beef broth
• Vegetable oil
• 3 cloves garlic
• 1 red onion
• 1 tablespoon dried thyme
• 1 tablespoon nutmeg (optional)
• 2 seasoning cubes (Knorr cubes)
• 1 stick celery
• 2 carrots (optional)
• 1 handful basil leaves (optional)
• 3 scotch bonnet peppers
• 2 bay leaves if desire, I did not use bay leaf
• Parmesan cheese for garnishing
• Salt to taste

Simple ingredients for spaghetti bolognese sauce

Just before the preparation of spaghetti bolognese sauce:

• Wash and dice your fresh tomatoes and keep aside, if you are using diced canned tomatoes, it will be easier for you, as you don’t need to carry out this.
• Dice onions, carrots, garlic and blend pepper, keep all aside.
• Shred celery and basil, keep both aside.
• Get your minced beef, wine/broth, and all other ingredients ready

Diced tomatoes, carrots, shredded celery, and basil for bolognese sauce

How to Make Spaghetti Bolognese Sauce

1. Heat a sauce pan on the heat, add vegetable oil into it.
2. Add chopped onions to fry for 2 minutes and add your meat balls or minced meat and stir fry until the meat separates.
3. Season the meat with garlic, pepper, salt, and 1 seasoning cube.
4. When the meat is completely browned, add diced tomato and fry for 5 minutes on a medium. heat. Add the tomato puree to the content and fry until it doesn’t taste sour anymore.
5. Add 1 cup of wine or broth to the content and leave it to simmer for 20 minutes or until the sauce is thickened.
6. Add nutmeg, 1 Knorr cube, thyme, carrot, and taste for salt, let the sauce cook for 10 minutes.
7. Add shredded basil and celery and leave the sauce to cook for an extra 5 minutes or more if you prefer.
8. Stir, taste for seasonings, and adjust if need be. Put the sauce off from heat and start cooking the spaghetti.

Easy steps to cook Bolognese sauce with Pictures

1. Heats a sauce pan on medium heat and then add some oil to it.
2. Add onions and fry. And then add ground beef or meat balls and stir fry occasionally to separate the meat from sticking together.
3. Season the beef with garlic, pepper, seasoning cube, and salt

Frying of meat balls for bolognese sauce

4. Add diced tomato and fry for 10 minutes and then add tomato puree and fry till it is properly cooked and until the sour taste is no more.

Add the diced tomato to the sauce and leave to cook for sometimes

Add the tomato puree to the sauce and let it cook on a medium heat

5. Add wine or beef broth, add thyme, nutmeg, carrots, seasoning cube, and salt and bring to a boil. Add bay leaves if you are using that at this time.

You can decide to use beef broth in place of red wine if you prefer

The sauce is really bubbling, the leaves should be added to the sauce after the liquid has reduced and the sauce is thickened

6. Add shredded basil and celery to the sauce, stir and leave to cook until all the ingredients are properly combined.

After adding the leaves, stir the sauce and adjust seasonings if there is need for that.

7.Taste for seasoning and adjust if need be.

Remove the sauce from heat and cook the spaghetti

8.Take the sauce off from heat and serve with your boiled spaghetti.

The spaghetti should be cooked until soft before serving

Soft spaghetti

Serving boiled spaghetti with bolognese sauce

Tasty spaghetti bolognese.

How to cook Spaghetti for Bolognese sauce

1. Put a medium pot on heat, add water and salt into it.
2. Empty the spaghetti from the pack into the pot when the water boils. Let the spaghetti cook until it is soft enough to serve with Bolognese sauce.
3. When it is soft enough, drain the liquid and return to the pot. Toast the spaghetti with 1 tablespoon olive oil to prevent it from clumping together.
4. Scoop into serving bowls and scoop the Bolognese sauce on top of the spaghetti.
5. Your spaghetti Bolognese is ready, enjoy with cheese or any topping of your choice.