Simmering This Bolognese Sauce for Hours Is Worth It To Create a Luxurious Pasta Sauce (2024)

Tomato Sauces
Easy Ground Beef
Italian

This classic Italian sauce simmers for hours to develop maximum flavor. Made with a blend of ground beef, pork, and Italian sausage, it's great with fresh pasta.

Elise Bauer

Elise founded Simply Recipes in 2003 and led the site until 2019. She has an MA in Food Research from Stanford University.

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Updated May 08, 2022

6 ratings

In This Recipe

What Is Bolognese?
How To Make Bolognese
What To Serve with Bolognese
Freezing Bolognese Sauce?

If you are looking for a truly luxurious pasta sauce, there is no better candidate than a classic Italian Bolognese.

Slow cooked for at least a couple of hours, the sauce is deep, rich, flavorful, and worth the extra effort!

What Is Bolognese Sauce?

Bolognese sauce is a classic Italian sauce for pasta made with ground meat such as beef or pork. It's slow cooked with a soffritto of onions, carrots, and celery, tomatoes, and milk to give it a creamy texture.

Pronounced "bow-luh-nez," the sauce comes from the Bologna region of Italy, hence the name. Given the cultural history of this sauce, there are many variations, but they all seem to follow a basic structure of ground meat, a soffritto, a bit of tomato, some milk, and long, slow cooking.

Simmering This Bolognese Sauce for Hours Is Worth It To Create a Luxurious Pasta Sauce (3)

How To Make Bolognese Sauce

This Bolognese sauce is the family recipe of one of our readers and is used in our Lasagna Bolognese recipe. The recipe includes ground beef, pork, and Italian sausage, which is essentially seasoned ground pork and pork fat.

To start, you sweat the soffritto of minced onions, celery, and carrots with pancetta in butter. Then you add the ground meat to brown it, and sprinkle with ground clove, cinnamon, and pepper.

Add tomatoes, then milk, and simmer for at least 2 hours on low heat. Keep it partially covered, but add water if too much liquid simmers away.

Of course, you can skip the long slow cooking if you want, (we have a quick Bolognese recipe) but the flavor definitely improves with the longer cooking.

What To Serve with Bolognese

Bolognese sauce is traditionally served with fresh tagliatelle pasta, but you can also serve it with fettuccine, pappardelle, penne, or other pasta.

Simmering This Bolognese Sauce for Hours Is Worth It To Create a Luxurious Pasta Sauce (4)

Can You Freeze Bolognese Sauce?

Yes! Bolognese will freeze well for up to 6 months. (Here's our favorite method.)

More Classic Italian Pasta Dishes to Try:

Fettuccine Alfredo
Baked Spaghetti
Penne Pasta with Meat Sauce
Cacio e Pepe
Baked Ziti

Simmering This Bolognese Sauce for Hours Is Worth It To Create a Luxurious Pasta Sauce (5)

Classic Bolognese Sauce

Prep Time15 mins

Cook Time3 hrs 30 mins

Total Time3 hrs 45 mins

Servings6 servings

Ingredients

2 ounces pancetta, finely chopped
1 medium Spanish onion or yellow onion, finely chopped
1 celery rib, finely chopped
1 carrot, finely chopped
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
12 ounces ground beef
4 ounces ground pork
4 ounces Italian sausage, casings removed, if needed
Dash ground cloves
Dash ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon freshlyground black pepper
2 pounds peeled and chopped tomatoes (or one 28-ounce can whole peeled tomatoes, packed in water)
1 cup whole milk
1/2 teaspoon sea salt

Method

Make the soffritto:
Combine pancetta, onion, celery, and carrot in sauté pan with butter and cook over medium heat until onion turns pale gold, about 10 minutes.
Add the meats:
Add the beef, pork, and sausage to the soffritto, and cook until browned, about 5 minutes.
Add the spices:
Sprinkle with the clove, cinnamon, and pepper.
Add the tomatoes and simmer:
Stir in tomatoes, increase the heat to bring to a simmer and then reduce the heat back to medium. Cook over medium heat for 15 minutes. If you are using whole canned tomatoes, break them up as you add them to the sauce.
Simmer for 2 1/2 hours:
Add milk and season with sea salt. Then turn down the heat to low, partially cover, and simmer for 2 1/2 hours. Stir at least every 20 minutes.
Whenever the sauce gets too dry and starts sticking to the pan, just add 1/4 cup of water and scrape up any browned bits from the bottom of the pan.
Taste and Serve:
Taste the sauce and adjust the seasoning as necessary.
Bolognese is traditionally served with fresh tagliatelle pasta, but you can also serve it with fettuccine, pappardelle, penne, or other pasta. Sauce freezes well for future use.

Nutrition Facts (per serving)
436	Calories
31g	Fat
11g	Carbs
27g	Protein

Show Full Nutrition Label

Nutrition Facts
Servings: 6
Amount per serving
Calories	436
% Daily Value*
Total Fat 31g	40%
Saturated Fat 13g	67%
Cholesterol 105mg	35%
Sodium 571mg	25%
Total Carbohydrate 11g	4%
Dietary Fiber 3g	12%
Total Sugars 7g
Protein 27g
Vitamin C 19mg	93%
Calcium 129mg	10%
Iron 3mg	17%
Potassium 752mg	16%
*The % Daily Value (DV) tells you how much a nutrient in a food serving contributes to a daily diet. 2,000 calories a day is used for general nutrition advice.

Nutrition information is calculated using an ingredient database and should be considered an estimate. In cases where multiple ingredient alternatives are given, the first listed is calculated for nutrition. Garnishes and optional ingredients are not included.