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This Easy Bolognese Sauce Recipe is perfect for a quick weeknight meal. With onion, garlic, ground beef and tomato sauce, it is flavorful and filling!
What is Bolognese Sauce
Bolognese Sauce is a great Italian flavored red tomato sauce with meat and onions, that goes great poured over pasta and used in a wide variety of Italian dishes! If you are a fan of Meatballs and spaghetti, you definitely need to make this AND some oven baked meatballs. You will be in love.
This bolognese sauce is so simple and fast that you can make it while your loose pasta is cooking in another pot and they’ll probably be finished around the same time, or have your sauce made and simmering on low while you finish up the other dinner components.
Your pasta dishes will go great with this homemade bolognese sauce! Serve up some garlic bread and a side of fresh green salad with your pasta dish and you have a delicious restaurant quality meal for a fraction of the price.
What’s in Bolognese Sauce?
- Ground Beef: I generally like to use a ground beef with lower fat content, but that can be a bit pricer at the grocery store. It really is up to your preference here. You could also substitute ground chicken or turkey if you’d rather.
- Yellow Onion, diced: I dice mine fresh, but if you’d rather use dried minced, be my guest!
- Dried Minced Garlic or Fresh Cloves: Because there can’t be any pasta sauce without garlic, am I right?
- Your Favorite Spaghetti Sauce: My personal favorite is Ragu’s Garlic Herb (not sponsored 😉 )
- Worcestershire Sauce: Even if we don’t know how to say it, this is a must! Really gives the sauce depth!
- Dried thyme: Just a teeny tiny pinch, but makes a world of difference.
- Heavy Cream: My secret ingredient! You don’t add much, but it takes the sauce up about 10 notches. The creamy richness is almost sinful.
- Salt and Pepper
Don’t forget to check out the recipe card below for the exact measurements and steps needed to make this delicious pasta sauce!
How to Make Bolognese Sauce
We are going to make this sauce all in a large skillet on the stovetop. First thing to do is brown your meat and then drain excess grease. My favorite (and apparently controversial way according to Facebook Land 😉 ) is to push all of the meat to the back of the pan and tilt it forward, causing the grease to separate. Then use tongs and a paper towel to soak up the hot grease and promptly discard. 🙂
In goes the other ingredients (minus the heavy cream!) and they are all simmered for about 5-10 minutes before stirring in the heavy cream. Then eat it all up with garlic bread, pasta and maybe just a spoon. Who knows! I won’t tell.
What Is The Difference Between Bolognese Sauce and Spaghetti Sauce?
Honestly, the difference isn’t very extreme in fact the two sauces can be successfully interchanged as needed in any recipe. The biggest and most prominent difference between the two sauces is that the bolognese sauce is thicker. By being thicker, it’s much better for wider noodle pasta dishes like lasagna and stuffed manicotti.
How Do You Thicken Bolognese Sauce?
To get your bolognese sauce even thicker you can continue to let it simmer on a med/low heat to help the excess liquid evaporate. You can also add in a small can of tomato paste t help thicken it even faster, but that may change the flavor and cause you to want to put in even more seasonings to accommodate the change.
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Want more Easy Dinners??
- One Pot Fettuccine Alfredo
- One Pot Creamy Ziti
- Easy Chicken Pot Pie
- Chicken Alfredo Stuffed Shells
- Instant Pot Salisbury Steak Meatballs
- Chicken Lettuce Wraps
Bolognese Sauce Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 lb ground beef
- 1/2 yellow onion, diced
- 4 cloves garlic, minced (can sub 1 tsp dried minced)
- 24 oz jar favorite spaghetti sauce
- 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
- 1 pinch thyme leaves
- 1 cup heavy cream
- salt and pepper, to taste
Instructions
- In a large skillet, sauté the ground beef and diced onion until cooked through. Remove any excess oil.
- Add the minced garlic, spaghetti sauce, Worcestershire sauce, and thyme leaves. Simmer for 5 minutes, until hot and heated through and slightly thickened.
- Stir in the heavy cream. Taste and season with salt and pepper as desired.
- Serve over pasta.
