- Updated: November 28, 2020
Bolognese Sauce or Ragu alla Bolognese is a meat sauce. It is made with few ingredients and lots of patience. A true Bolognese takes time, but it is so worth it.
This pasta Bolognese recipe is inspired by the traditional recipe with some swaps due to personal preferences. Firstly, I am using pork only for this recipe. Secondly, I do not used wine.
The key to keeping Bolognese sauce moist and flavoursome, is slow cooking it is keeping all the meat luscious and tender.
The sauce is tossed with the pasta
The recipe and inspiration comes from Chef Vincenzo. The recipe for Bolognese sauce is on this page.
Notes:
Tbsp = tablespoon
Chopped = chopped or cut into ½ cm pieces
Soffrito is a mixture of slowly cooked carrots, onions, and celery, used as a base to add flavour to sauces, soups and stews. The vegetables are roughly chopped into small pieces and cooked in olive oil over low heat until soft and just shy of brown or golden.
Pancetta is a salumi made of pork belly meat that is salt cured.
How to make Pork Bolognese Pasta
1. Heat 1½ tbsp oil in a pan. Add finely chopped onions, carrot, celery, garlic (optional) and pancetta (if available).
2. Stir and sauté on a low to medium flame for 15 to 20 minutes or until the soffrito is brown or golden.
3. Then add the minced pork, oregano, and black pepper.
4. Stir and sauté on a medium flame for 5 minutes or until pork is cooked and brown. If wine is available, it is added this stage. The wine should be absorbed by the pork.
5. Then add ¼ to ½ cup of tomato puree and 1 to 2 cups of water or stock and salt.
6. Stir and sauté on a low to medium flame for 5 minutes.
7. Leave on a low flame for 70 – 80 minutes. Check and stir occasionally to ensure that the sauce is not dried out. Add water if necessary.
8. 15 minutes before the sauce is ready, cook linguine according to package directions until al dente. This is from 6 to 9 minutes. Drain, rinse, and transfer linguine to the serving plates. Add pasta water to the meat sauce if the sauce is a bit dry.
9. Switch off the flame of the meat sauce.
10. Toss the meat sauce into the pasta.
11. Add parsley and grated cheese and serve.
Prep Time: 20 mins
Cook Time: 110 mins
Total Time: 130 mins
Cuisine inspiration: Italian
Servings: 4
Ingredients
500 g linguine or tagliatelle
3 tbsp olive oil
2 large size onions finely chopped
4 cloves garlic finely chopped
1 large size carrot finely chopped
1 celery stalk finely chopped
½ tbsp black pepper powder
10 tbsp tomato puree
450 to 500 g minced pork, lean preferred
25g pancetta cut into pieces, if available
½ cup white wine, omitted
1 – 2 tbsp oregano or thyme
1 to 2 cups water – to adjust as required
4 to 6 tbsp chopped parsley
1 tbsp salt added to boiling pasta
½ to 1 tbsp salt for cooking – to adjust as required
Grated cheese – added prior to serving