Go travel to Italy and you won’t find anything called Spaghetti Bolognese. Instead, what you’ll find is Bolognese Tagliatelle, which is the real way of serving that thick meaty sauce! You can’t ever go wrong with a good plate of pasta bolognese. But I hate that it gets the reputation of being a cheap meal. It really isn’t and shouldn’t be if you do it properly. Meaty, savoury, and deep flavours – a good bolognese is soo much more than just ground meat tossed in sauce.

Bolognese is originated in Bologna, Italy, where the meat is slow-cooked into this rich and thick sauce, a.k.a a ragu. The concept of Spaghetti Bolognese isn’t authentic to Italians. It’s more of an American adaptation. In Italy, the bolognese sauce is most typically served with Tagliatelle, which has a thick and flat surface to carry along the meat sauce.

In my house, when we say we’re going to have bolognese, it means slow-cooked bolognese tagliatelle time. Take your time in letting the meaty flavours come through and you’ll be rewarded on your taste buds! I’ve always loved a bolognese, ordering it every time as a kid when eating out at restaurants. ‘You need to know how to make what you love’ – that’s what my dad used to always tell me and it took many years of playing around with ingredients & cooking methods to settle with this one that I now always stick with. That being said, by no means is this an authentic Italian bolognese recipe, but it’s a good one!

How to make Slow-cooked Bolognese Tagliatelle

Ingredients:

Beef Mince
Garlic, Onion – the aromatics
Red Chilli Flakes – optional, but great for adding a little tease to the palate
Paprika, Oregano, Salt, Black Pepper – for seasoning
Tomato Paste – for enriching the tomato flavour
Tinned chopped tomatoes
Beef Stock
Bay Leaves – to lighten up the dish
Vegetable Oil – for cooking
Fresh Parsley Leaves – for garnish
Parmesan / Vegetarian Italian Hard Cheese – grated on top to serve

Recipe notes

Instead of cooking the aromatics and the mince together, I start with browning the mince first, remove it from the pot and then cook the aromatics (i.e the garlic and onions) in the remaining juices before eventually combining the two together. By doing this, I try to extract the flavours from the beef first by browning it in high heat. The remaining juices are then used to cook the aromatics over a lower heat to maximise the flavours. It’s a small trick but one that goes a long way!

Cooking a bolognese is not a quick job. I would cook the bolognese for at least 2 hours. The longer you cook it, the richer and more depth of flavours you will get. We want good flavours here.

Alternative Bolognese Serving Ideas

Here comes my favourite part after gobbling up all that delicious bolognese. What I really like to do is to make a big batch of bolognese. You can easily meal prep with it and you’re not just limited to pasta as well! If you want some inspiration, I’ve got a few for you that you may or may not have thought of:

Pasta al Forno – one obvious variation would be turning the pasta bolognese into a pasta al forno, i.e baked with cheese on top! It’s definitely one you can’t go wrong with.
Cantonese style over rice/egg fried rice – if you’re more of a rice person, in local Hong Kong restaurants, bolognese over rice (or egg fried rice), topped with a fried egg, is a thing. The traditional seasoning would be a bit different but the main thing here is that the combo works.
Sloppy Joe – it’s also a good idea to use the bolognese for an adaptation to American Sloppy Joe! The meat sauce goes well with bread and certainly goes well being sandwiched in between toasted burger buns.
Brunch it up – speaking of bolognese on bread, ever thought about using it as a brunch idea? I hope you don’t frown on me but I would toast some bread, butter them up and top them with fried eggs, cheese, and generous coops of bolognese on top. It works.
Turn it into meat pies – grab some ready-made pastry sheets, scoop some bolognese in and make some meat pies! Easy peasy.

Looking for more meaty inspo? Check these out too: