It seems like so many friends have a pasta sauce that is their weeknight mainstay. My friend, Courtney, recently shared with me her go-to bolognese sauce, which was delicious. We decided it was high time to craft our own. To fill our social distancing television dance card, we’d added Lidia’s Kitchen from PBS to our watching rotation. Her recipes are super simple and definitely delicious. Our weeknight bolognese is a variation of her bolognese recipe.
It’s also a great way to clear out your fridge of a few vegetables that need to go. A special thanks goes to my hubby for helping me with this delish recipe!
Ingredients:
Olive oil
1 medium yellow onion
1/2 cup of diced celery (along with any other veggies you’d like to add here)
Tomato paste (1-2 tbsp)
1 lb protein (we used beef, but you can use whatever you have)
Crushed red pepper flakes
Oregano
Red wine (about 1/3 cup, plus some for the chef)
26oz can of whole tomatoes, undrained (San Marzano if you can find them)
Freshly grated Parmesan cheese (Parmigiano Reggiano is best)
Salt and pepper
Directions:
Begin with a healthy drizzle of olive oil in a deep-sided pan over medium heat.
Add an onion (or more if you’d like) and some celery diced small (we used all of the celery, including leaves and lighter green parts). You could also add carrots here, or any other veggies you have on hand. Be sure to keep the amounts (and size of your cuts) equal.
Sauté all of the vegetables for a few minutes, helping them to sweat by adding a bit of salt.
Then, after the veggies have softened a bit, add one pound of protein. We used beef but turkey, pork, veal, chicken or venison will work…or a combination of any of the above.
Brown the protein – which takes just a few minutes (5-10).
Once the protein is cooked, push it to the side a bit so that you can bloom the tomato paste and seasonings. Here’s how: put a tablespoon or two of tomato paste directly onto the pan and stir around to heat it up before mixing into the meat.
Next, push the tomato paste aside again and add some spices (red pepper flakes and just a few bits of dried oregano) to the pan. Heat the spices a bit before moving them into the mixture as well.
Then, add about 1/3 cup of red wine and use the wine to scrape the bottom of the pan to get all of the delicious caramelized bits off the bottom incorporated into your sauce.
As the wine reduces for a few minutes, crush a 26oz can of whole tomatoes with your hands as you put them (and their sauce) into the pan.
All of these ingredients should simmer for as long as you can allow, stirring occasionally to keep them from sticking.
After at least 20 minutes of simmering, begin to make your pasta.
Salt the water nicely and boil your pasta.
About halfway through your pasta cooking, ladle some of the pasta water into your sauce to loosen it and allow some of that water to cook off as you finish your pasta.
Then, 1 or 2 minutes before your pasta is set to be ready, use a spider to add the pasta into your sauce (a little residual water in the pasta is OK). Stir the pasta into your sauce and allow the pasta to finish cooking in the sauce.
Serve with some freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano cheese and a glass of that red wine you used to cook with…if you have any left over!
Cheers!
This post may contain affiliate links, but all are tried and true Magnolia Stripes favorites.
