Slow Cooked Spaghetti Bolognese Recipe
This slow cooked spaghetti bolognese recipe probably doesn’t need much introduction! It’s a delicious combination of delicious minced beef, herbs, tomatoes and wine (if you like!) sat on a swirl of spaghetti and topped off with a generous grating of parmesan style cheese.
Cooking the bolognese sauce in a slow cooker allows the ingredients to wake up slowly, which brings a deeper flavour than cooking it quickly on the cooker top.
It’s also great as you can pop the bolognese in the slow cooker first thing when you have more energy and when it comes to dinner time all you need to do is boil some spaghetti in a pan, drain and serve!
The beauty of this dish is that the sauce will keep for 3-4 days in the fridge and the flavours start to meld and mingle making it even tastier. It also can be used in lasagne or adapted slightly to become a chilli so it’s a wonderfully versatile dish.
Ingredients for Slow Cooked Spaghetti Bolognese
For the Tomato Sauce
- Minced beef (it doesn’t really matter if you use 500g, 750g or a 1kg or any other amount. It’s very much an adaptable recipe. If you have less mince you’ll use less tomatoes or passata, and if you use more you’ll need more but it’s fine either way)
- 1 medium onion, finely chopped, or a good shaking of frozen diced or sliced onion.
- 1 tablespoonful of olive oil
- 2 cloves of garlic, peeled and finely crushed (optional)
- 1 small packet of smoked bacon lardons or diced pancetta (optional)
- 1 bottle of passatta (or 1 or 2 tins of chopped tomatoes depending how much mince you’re using)
- Handful of button mushrooms, wiped with kitchen towel and sliced (optional)
- 2 couple of sticks of celery, washed and finely chopped (optional)
- Glass of wine (red or white are fine)
- Dried thyme, rosemary, oregano, basil or some spicy italian seasoning (it’s like a pre-blend you can get from the same shelf as the dried herbs and spices)
- Freshly ground black pepper
- Beef Stock cube (optional)
- Worcester Sauce (optional)
- Squirt of tomato purree (optional)
- Fresh Basil
Freshly cooked Spaghetti, Freshly ground black pepper and parmesan cheese to serve
Cooking Notes
If you have a Sear and Stew slow cooker with a metal removable pot that’s advertised as being suitable for use on the hob top, you can use that in place of a sauce pan.
If your slow cooker is made out of ceramic, you’ll need to use a sauce pan and then transfer it. If in doubt please refer to your manufacturers instruction book.
Method
Put the olive oil into a large saucepan (or slow cooker metal removable pot) and heat gently over a medium heat. Add the pancetta, onions, mushrooms and celery if using and stir gently until the onions go glossy and golden looking.
Add in the mince and stir until it?s all nicely browned, add the garlic and stir
Once the mince is browned all over add a shaking of herbs into the mince mix and stir again.
Add the tomato puree and wine if using and then add the passatta or chopped tomatoes and stir. It needs to almost cover the mince (but not completely cover it) If you?re using a stock cube add that in too and stir.
Add a shake of worcester sauce if liked, stir in.
Transfer everything into the slow cooker and cook on high if you’ve just got the afternoon or low if you’ve got all day. If you like it slightly thicker, you can always add a thickener towards the end of cooking (I normally stir in a few beef gravy granules but there are other methods of thickening too)
Serve with freshly cooked spaghetti (follow instructions on packet) and some parmesan cheese if liked and some garlic bread
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