Making bolognese is so simple over the stove top BUT in the slow cooker? Even better when the slow cooker does all the work! You will LOVE this Slow Cooker Spaghetti Bolognese recipe!
bolognese
The ONLY way we love our bolognese is cooked in a slow cooker or crockpot. With incredibly soft and tender meat, it falls apart all over your pasta.
This family recipe makes enough to freeze any leftovers for any emergency dinner situation OR enough for the next day. Just boil up some more pasta, and you have a restaurant-quality meal two days in a row! NO COOKING! Well, except for boiling the pasta, which is simple itself. OR, do what we do and use the leftovers to smother ALL over toast.
slow cooker spaghetti bolognese
What I have found over the years of making this sauce is browning the meat first before adding it to the slow cooker tastes incredible. I used to throw it all in the slow cooker without browning the meat first, but we had an aversion to the ‘stewed meat’ flavor.
I also found frying off your onion and garlic first creates a delicious depth of flavor.
pasta sauce
The sauce is so versatile you can serve it over pasta, like the spaghetti pictured here. Still, I usually do this sauce over zucchini noodles or steamed vegetables such as broccoli, cauliflower, and pumpkin when following a low-carb diet or calorie-counting.
The sauce is so thick and rich, full of unmistakable Italian flavors.
INGREDIENTS
Bolognese Sauce:
- One tablespoon of olive oil
- Two onions finely chopped
- Four cloves minced garlic (or one tablespoon minced garlic)
- 2 pounds (1 kg) of lean ground beef
- 1/2 cup (125 ml) red wine or beef broth/stock (optional)
- 2 x 28-ounce cans of crushed tomatoes
- 1 cup (250 ml) beef stock
- Six tablespoons of tomato paste
- One large carrot chopped
- One tablespoon of stock powder or crushed beef bouillon
- 2-3 teaspoons salt, adjust to your tastes
- Two teaspoons dried oregano (or one teaspoon fresh oregano, finely chopped)
- Two teaspoons dried basil (or two teaspoons fresh basil, finely chopped)
- One teaspoon sugar
- Cracked pepper to taste
- 1/4 cup fresh chopped parsley
To Serve:
- 17 ounces (500 g) dry pasta (spaghetti)
INSTRUCTIONS
- Heat the olive oil in a large skillet or pan over medium-high heat. Saute onion until softened. Add the garlic and cook until fragrant (about 30 seconds).
- Brown beef, breaking it apart with a wooden spoon until just beginning to brown (about 2-3 minutes). Transfer to a 6-quart slow cooker bowl.
- Return the skillet to the stove; pour in the wine while scraping any bits of the fried meat from the pan. Bring to a gentle simmer and transfer to the slow cooker bowl.
- Add the crushed tomatoes, beef stock, tomato paste, carrot, stock powder (or crushed bouillon cubes), salt, oregano, basil, sugar, and pepper to the slow cooker bowl. Cover and cook on low for 6-7 hours or high for 3-4 hours. Add in the chopped parsley before serving.
- In the last 15 minutes of cooking, boil pasta in salted water following packet instructions.
- Drain, reserving 1/2 cup of pasta water. Pour the reserved water back into the pasta with 2 cups of cooked bolognese sauce. Stir until the sauce is thick enough to coat the pasta.
- Serve with parmesan cheese and (extra) chopped parsley, if desired.