Try this Slow Cooker Bolognese Sauce recipe, or contribute your own.
- 2 cloves garlic minced
- 2 tablespoons tomato paste
- 1 cup milk
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 2 celery stalks diced
- 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
- 2 medium carrots diced
- 1 small yellow onion minced
- 1/2 cup mushrooms diced
- 12 ounces lean ground beef
- 1 teaspoon fresh thyme chopped (or 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme)
- 1 teaspoon fresh oregano chopped (or 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano)
- 1 cup dry white or red wine
- 1 (28-ounce) crushed tomatoes or whole peeled tomato mashed into small pieces
- Carbohydrate 4.83410375049189 g
- Cholesterol 30.640785025036 mg
- Fat 6.11995034080795 g
- Fiber 0.854624991185637 g
- Protein 9.96438380566711 g
- Saturated Fat 2.41538597156651 g
- Serving Size 1 1 serving (103g)
- Sodium 206.331227875753 mg
- Sugar 3.97947875930625 g
- Trans Fat 0.687673406483414 g
- Calories 115 calories
Step-by-step
- In a Dutch oven or large skillet, heat extra virgin olive oil over high heat. Add onion, carrots and celery; cook until slightly softened, stirring frequently for about five minutes. Add the mushrooms, garlic and tomato paste and cook until garlic is fragrant, about one minute.
- Add ground beef and cook, breaking up meat with a spoon until no longer pink, about five minutes. Add salt, pepper, oregano and thyme and stir until combined.
- Add milk and bring sauce to a simmer until liquid is completely absorbed, about five minutes. Add wine and stir, simmering again until liquid is evaporated again, for about 10 minutes. At this point, meat should be nice and browned and sauce should be thickening.
- Meanwhile, place tomatoes in the bowl of a slow cooker. Add the beef mixture to the slow cooker and stir until everything is combined.
- Cover the slow cooker and cook on the low setting for six to eight hours. Sauce will be ready to eat immediately or refrigerate in an air-tight container until you’re ready to reheat on the stovetop and serve.
- When sauce is almost done (or reheating), cook your favorite Barilla Collezione pasta (I’m partial to spaghetti or rigatoni) in a pot of boiling salted water until al dente, according to package instructions; drain.
- Toss pasta with the meat sauce and serve sprinkled with cheese. Leftovers will keep for 3-5 days or can be frozen up to three months in individual portions.
Scanning the ingredients reveals a standard roster of aromatics and meats, but it omits the precise chemical mechanics required to build a proper ragù. Raw minced beef tossed directly into a slow cooker produces a gray, mealy stew rather than a rich sauce because proteins clump together without prior rendering. Searing the lean ground beef in a skillet alongside onions, carrots, and celery over high heat triggers the Maillard reaction, developing browned flavor compounds that pure liquid braising cannot replicate. Dice the mirepoix vegetables uniformly to ensure they soften evenly during the five-minute preliminary skillet phase before any liquids enter the pan.
Adding one cup of milk early in the stovetop sequence is a traditional Emilia-Romagna technique that tenderizes the beef proteins through gentle acid action while distributing milk fats throughout the lean meat. Simmer that milk until completely absorbed, roughly five minutes, before introducing the dry wine to deglaze the pan and dissolve the browned fond stuck to the bottom. Cooking the wine until fully evaporated ensures harsh alcohol notes disappear entirely, leaving only fruit sugars and acidity to balance the richness of the beef and dairy fats. Tomato paste cooked with the garlic for one minute unlocks fat-soluble carotenoids, deepening the color base before everything transfers to the slow cooker insert.
Extended low-temperature cooking for six to eight hours breaks down connective tissues while concentrating the crushed tomatoes without scorching the bottom of the vessel. Maintaining this gentle thermal environment allows the fats released from the beef to emulsify into the tomato puree rather than separating into an oily slick on the surface. Stir the contents thoroughly after the long braise to ensure total homogenization before tossing with pasta cooked in heavily salted boiling water until al dente. Reserve a quarter cup of starchy pasta water to adjust the sauce viscosity if the reduction becomes overly thick during the final toss.
Leftover portions stored in an airtight container will keep safely in the refrigerator for three to five days, or frozen for up to three months. Extended refrigeration actually benefits this sauce by allowing the aromatic compounds to fully integrate, resulting in a more cohesive flavor profile upon reheating gently on the stovetop.
