Spare Spoons Kitchen
Bolognese Meat Sauce
Showroom · A weekend project · 3½ hours

Bolognese
Meat Sauce

Marcella Hazan's classic ragù — the celebrated Bologna meat sauce, cooked in milk before wine and tomatoes and simmered for hours into something mellow and deeply sweet. A weekend project that rewards every minute.

~3 hr 30 min total 15 min prep 3 hr+ simmer
Effort ●●●○ Time ●●●● A Project
Gluten-Free
Servingsamounts scale to match
6
Units

Ingredients

Milk before wine and tomatoes, and a 3-hour lazy simmer. Marcella's secrets: cook the beef in milk first (it keeps the meat sweet and tender against the acid to come), then the wine, then the tomatoes — and simmer at the merest, occasional bubble for at least 3 hours, adding a little water if it dries. Rushed, it's just meat sauce; slow, it's ragù.

Easier, if you like

  • Make a double batch and freeze — the long cook is the same effort for twice the reward. It keeps 3 days refrigerated; reheat and simmer 15 minutes before tossing with pasta.
  • Boxed pasta (rigatoni, fusilli, tagliatelle) is, in Marcella's word, "irreproachable" here — no need to make fresh.

Method

    Cook's notes

    Use well-marbled beef — chuck (the neck portion is ideal). Lean meat makes a harsher sauce; the fat is what makes ragù sweet.

    Milk first. Simmering the beef in milk before the wine and tomatoes protects it from the acid and keeps it tender; a little nutmeg goes in with it.

    The merest simmer, uncovered, 3+ hours. Add a splash of water if it sticks; at the end the fat should separate and no water remain. It only gets better the longer it goes.

    In Bologna it's tossed with tagliatelle (never spaghetti), or layered into green lasagne. A tablespoon of pork (1 part ground pork to 2 parts beef) makes it richer still.

    Provenance: adapted from Marcella Hazan's ragù bolognese in Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking — with gratitude to the cook who taught a generation how Italians really cook.

    Make the tagliatelle: roll a batch of homemade pasta and cut it into wide ribbons — fresh tagliatelle is the classic partner for this ragù.

    It's already gluten-free (the sauce)

    Gluten-free: the ragù itself has no flour — serve it over gluten-free pasta or soft polenta.