Recipe: Spaghetti bolognese

If you’ve seen my recipes, then you know I am a big fan of easy recipes that are fairly quick to make as well. I have been having vacation this past week, which meant I had a little bit more time on my hands than usual to cook a delicious meal. I thought this turned out so well, that I immediately wanted to put this blog post out there. Meet my rendition of spaghetti bolognese!

Want to know how to make this? Then keep on reading!

One reason why I think my recipes are easy to make is because I try to keep the ingredients as simple as possible. I still pretty much cook using a budget similar to that of my student days. Mainly because that is when I learned how to cook, so most of the everyday dishes I create, are variation on what I made back in the day. Another reason is because I simply love pasta and rice dishes as they are versatile, easy to change up if you run out of a certain ingredient and they make for great on the go lunches too.

This spaghetti bolognese came about in the supermarket. The day after Christmas, many fresh ingredients were on sale as they were about to expire and so I decided to pick up some organic ground beef. The rest took shape from there. This recipe isn’t as quick as most of the recipes I post, but the wait is well worth it.

Total time: 50 mins. Prep time: 10 mins. Cooking time: 40 mins. Serves: 4 – 5.

Ingredients:

• spaghetti (I used gluten free)
• ground beef
• 1 small courgette/ zucchini
• 1 onion
• 1 can of diced tomatoes
• 1 carton of passata
• 1 small can of concentrated tomato paste
• oregano
• basil
• pepper
• chili pepper

I hardly ever cook using cans and packages, but when making a tomato based sauce I make an exception. I do make sure to pick the products that have no added sugars and as few ingredients as possible. I still eat mostly gluten free or spelt pasta, but you can use any pasta you’d like. Because I hardly ever use salt in my cooking, I opt for chili pepper instead to give my sauce a bit of a punch. Oh and I don’t know how much meat I used as the discount sticker was very conveniently placed over that information.

Step 1: Take a skillet with a large edge and add some olive oil to it.

Step 2: Chop up your onion, heat up your pan, and once your oil is hot, add the onion. Fry it up until it looks glazed.

Step 3: Add your garlic. I use a garlic press to do this, but you can also chop it up.

Step 3: Once the garlic is slightly browned, add the courgette and fry it up.

Step 4: Once your veggies look like they are nicely cooking away, made some space for your meat. Add some more oil and then add the meat into the space you created.

Step 5: Add your seasonings and stir it all together.

Step 6: Fry up your meat till it looks cooked and has fallen apart into little curds.

Step 7: Time to add the tomato sauce. I just chuck all the ‘tomato’ bits into the pan.

Step 8: Stir your sauce and bring to a boil while stirring.

Step 9: Now comes to waiting part. When your sauce has started to boil, turn down the heat to a simmer, and add a lid onto your pan. Let the sauce cook for 20 – 30 minutes on a low heat. After 20 minutes I decided to move the lid of the pan so there was more of a gap to let the steam escape the pan. I let it cook for another 10 minutes.

Step 10: I cooked my pasta according to the package. In the mean time, I took the lid off the sauce and had that bubble away for the time it took to cook my pasta (another 10 to 15 minutes). This led to the water in the sauce to evaporate, and reduced the sauce down and made it much thicker, which is what I was going for. Sauce too thick? Add some water. Sauce too thin? Just let it simmer away some more.

And there you have it! A delicious thick, meaty sauce that packed loads of flavor. Make sure you taste your sauce a few times in between and add more seasoning if you feel it needs it. Bon appetit!

What is your favorite pasta dish?