This traditional sauce for Bolognese is so good. Once you have made it you will never want to use a jar of spaghetti sauce again! Making your own is always best and this recipe is so easy as well.
Featuring ground beef and red wine for a full flavor, this easy spaghetti Bolognese sauce also includes garlic sausage or bacon, as well as garlic and mushrooms, for a gourmet taste in every wonderful mouthful.
In fact, this easy spaghetti Bolognese sauce would be special enough to serve at a dinner party. Everyone loves Italian food and if you serve this over fresh spaghetti with a sprig of green basil on top for a beautiful meal, you will win everyone’s heart!
Serve a glass of Italian red wine on the side (chianti and montepulciano are good) to add to the Mediterranean feel of the meal. Perhaps offer some tiramisu for dessert just to make the meal even more Italian and memorable.
Sauce for Bolognese: See How Easy It Is
Most of this spaghetti Bolognese sauce recipe is just a question of adding the ingredients to a dish and pressing ‘cook’ on the microwave. That is honestly how easy it is.
Once this is cooking in there, put on a pot of pasta and then serve everything together, with some freshly grated parmesan for sprinkling over the top. Yum!
Recipe Variations
Making your own spag bol sauce means you can tweak it however you wish. Feel free to add extra components or leave ones out you don’t want to have. Here are a few ideas you might like to consider:
- Omit or leave out the garlic.
- Replace the mixed dried herbs with a pinch each of oregano, rosemary, basil, and anything else you want.
- This is a keto-friendly sauce for Bolognese and you can always replace the spaghetti with zucchini (courgette) noodles or palmini (low carb noodle replacement made from hearts of palm).
- Leave out the ground meat, sausage and/or bacon for a vegetarian version, perhaps replacing the beef with your favorite vegetarian meat alternative (such as Quorn or TVP).
Easy Sauce for Bolognese: How to Cook It
This pasta Bolognese sauce is made in the microwave for the sake of convenience. If you do want to cook it on the stove, you can. The cooking time will be about the same but there will be more stirring and watching to make sure it doesn’t stick or dry out.
And you might also like to discover how to make a white wine pasta sauce that’s easily as good as any restaurant sauce.
Pesto Spaghetti with Easy Baked Meatballs
Ingredients
- 8 oz (230g) dried spaghetti
- 2 tablespoons prepared pesto sauce
- 4 sprigs of fresh basil, for garnish (optional)
- 1 lb (450g) ground beef or pork
- 1 lightly beaten large egg
- 2 minced garlic cloves
- ½ minced small onion
- 2 tablespoons marinara or tomato sauce
- 1 tablespoon each chopped fresh rosemary, chopped fresh parsley and chopped fresh basil
- ½ cup (65g) regular or Italian breadcrumbs
- ¼ cup (25g) shredded fresh Parmesan cheese
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
Method
- Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
- Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Combine all the meatball ingredients in a bowl and mix.
- Take care not to over-mix unless you like tough meatballs.
- Divide the mixture in half then repeat until you have 16 equal-sized meatballs.
- It is best to do this with wet hands so you can shape them better without having them cracking.
- Bake for 20 minutes or until cooked through.
- While they are baking, cook the spaghetti following the instructions on the package.
- Drain off the water then toss the hot cooked spaghetti with the pesto sauce.
- You might want to add a little more pesto sauce - just use your judgement.
- Divide the pesto spaghetti between 4 warmed serving plates.
- Add 4 meatballs to each one and garnish with fresh basil.
- Serve right away.
Notes
- Feel free to make any changes you like to the meatballs recipe, perhaps swapping the herbs for others or even adding some red pepper for spice.
- Some people like to toss the meatballs with the spaghetti while others serve the meatballs on top - this is up to you of course.
- Serve some shredded parmesan cheese on the side if you like - fresh parmesan of course, to keep it authentic and delicious!
Easy Spaghetti Bolognese Sauce
Ingredients
- 1 diced onion
- 1 crushed clove garlic
- 1 diced green bell pepper
- 2 tablespoons oil
- 3½ oz (100g) sliced mushrooms
- ½ lb (225g) lean ground beef
- 3 fl oz (100ml) red wine
- 1 tablespoon mixed dried herbs
- 3½ oz (100g) diced garlic sausage or bacon
- 14 oz (400g) can chopped tomatoes
- 2 tablespoons tomato concentrate (tomato paste)
- Salt and pepper
Method
- Mix the onion, garlic, pepper and oil in a bowl.
- Microwave on ‘high’ for 2 minutes or until the onion is soft.
- Stir in the other ingredients.
- Cover and cook on ‘high’ for 10 minutes.
- Then cook on ‘medium’ for 15-20 minutes or until the vegetables are soft.
- Serve over cooked spaghetti or any kind of cooked pasta.
Notes
- Cook the sauce for Bolognese on the stove if you prefer. It will take longer but if you have time you can expect a richer flavor from the slower cooking time.