Authentic Bolognese Sauce (Ragu)

This traditional bolognese is a pork and beef ragu that comes from the Bologna region of Italy. This bolognese recipe (ragu) is a classic Italian meat sauce that is cooked for hours and then tossed with the pasta. This authentic bolognese is the one that you will find used often in Italy when you visit and there is no cream or dairy of any kind which is how traditional ragu is often made.

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Total Time: 3 hours 20 minutes

About this Bolognese Recipe

This traditional bolognese recipe (beef and pork ragu) is one that many Italians make and it does not involve cream or milk like many recipes out there. This bolognese recipe and my simple cheese tortellini recipe were taught to me by two Italian Sfoglinas (women who hand roll pasta) on a recent trip to Italy.

The key to this authentic bolognese sauce is lots of meat and cooking it for hours to achieve that richness that makes a bolognese so delicious.

This is not like a meat sauce that Americans think of when they think of bolognese. It is a sauce with meat however and it has a little wine and classic Italian aromatics like onion, carrots and celery and a thick tomato sauce.

The end result is pure meaty richness that you will love. I love making a double batch of this ragu and freezing some of it so I can make a classic lasagna bolognese later in the week.

Ingredients to make a traditional bolognese

• Tomato Puree. Italians uses what is called tomato passata. If you can find it, use that. If not, tomato puree will work great too.
• Carrots.
• Onion.
• Celery.
• Meat- We use ground pork and beef in this recipe.
• Olive oil- Try to use extra virgin olive oil.
• Salt A little in the recipe and then tasting at the end to see if you want to add more. Kosher salt is preferred.
• White wine
• Fresh Pasta- Try to use rigatoni, tagliatelle or another wide long noodle shape.

How to make bolognese:

• Step 1: First you want to finely chop your carrots, onion and celery in the food processor. This ensures they completely cook into the sauce later.

I like to use the food processor to get the carrots, celery and onions very small. You can easily just finely chop them for the sauce.

Do whatever is easiest for you!

• Step 3: Start sautéing your aromatics for the ragu (onion, carrots and celery).
• Step 4: Take out your ground beef and ground pork and add it to the sauté pan.

This part is very straightforward 🙂 You first want to cook down the carrots, celery and onion. Once they are cooked down you can start browning the beef and pork mixture.

• Step 5: When you cook the meat, you are not going to cook it all the way through like you would in other meat sauces you are used to. You want the meat to render in the sauce.
• Step 6: Here is what the meat mixture should look like after cooking it. About 60-70 percent cooked.
• Step 7: Add the wine and reduce down.

I prefer to not fully brown the meat so that the meat will cook directly in the tomatoes that you add in the next step. This keeps the meat really tender which is what you want in a traditional bolognese.

Once the meat is cooked, you want to add the white wine to the meat and allow it reduce almost completely. Make sure you do not add the tomatoes until then.

• Step 8: Grab your tomato puree or passata.
• Step 9: Add your tomato puree to the meat and mix well. At this stage it looks like a regular meat sauce. It will cook into a beautiful Ragu, promise!

If the sauce looks too thick, you can add a little water and thin it out a bit.

Tips when making this bolognese sauce

• Pasta: try to use fresh pasta when you make this bolognese which is how Italians would eat this dish. Tagliatelle is also preferred (or a similar wide noodle pasta) since the sauce has something to stick to.
• Tomato puree: Italians use what is called passata for the bolognese. Passata is basically tomato puree and is easily substituted. Whole tomatoes or crushed tomatoes are too liquid to use in this recipe so make sure to use puree.
• Do not skimp on the amount of meat. The beef and pork combination used in this bolognese are important and what an authentic bolognese is all about, the meat.

Pasta to serve with a traditional bolognese

A traditional bolognese (ragu) is served with fresh tagliatelle. That is if you live in Bologna, Italy 🙂

Italians from Bologna are very particular about this. Many of us cannot find tagliatelle or fresh pasta so any long pasta or even rigatoni like I used will do.

I really like the thick pasta shape of rigatoni so that is what I use most often.

Faqs

Variations

I make another bolognese, my pork bolognese which uses cream in it to add more richness and because I only use one meat, pork. It breaks another rule of using spaghetti and not fresh pasta.

The end result is still shear deliciousness and it is rich the way an Italian bolognese should be.

Both versions are amazing just different. I hope you give this bolognese recipe a try and see for yourself, how amazing such simple ingredients can be.

More Italian Pasta Recipes:

• Pork Ragu (Pork Bolognese)
• Pasta Genovese
• Pasta with Broccoli and Truffle Cream Sauce
• Spaghetti Aglio e Olio
• Broken Noodles with Sausage and Kale
• Pasta with Chickpeas, Spinach and Lemon
• Italian Sunday Gravy- Sicilian Style
• Ricotta Pasta
• Pasta Nerano (Pasta with Zucchini)



Authentic Bolognese Sauce