Slow Cooker Bolognese Pasta

Welcome back to my “Tour of Italy” recipe week! I began yesterday with my Caprese Tomatoes appetizer and am continuing the tour today with a main dish of Bolognese Pasta.

I had only eaten Bolognese a few times before but had always remembered how incredibly delicious it was each time I tried it. When my cooking club’s menu for this week was Italian, it got me to thinking about this pasta and wanting to finally try my hand at making it. I didn’t take it to cooking club since we already had enough main dishes coming, but as I was getting into the Italian cooking spirit, I decided to make it for my family.

I researched several recipes for Bolognese that seemed pretty involved, but I was still excited to try it. Then I remembered that I had long ago torn out of my Southern Living magazine a slow cooker version which I’d completely forgetten about! I found it, read over it, and it sounded great! It was decided; this was the recipe I would use!

This recipe is from the Southern Living October 2015 issue. They called it “Bolognese Made Easy”, and they weren’t lying. It was very easy!

Slow Cooker Bolognese Pasta

Ingredients:

1 medium yellow onion, finely chopped

2 celery ribs, finely chopped

1 medium carrot, finely chopped

1 Tbsp. olive oil

2 garlic cloves, minced

2 Tbsp. tomato paste

2 lb. lean ground beef (a mixture of beef and pork is also very tasty!)

1 Tbsp. salt

2 tsp. sugar

2 tsp. dried Italian seasoning

1/2 tsp. ground black pepper

1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg

1 bay leaf

1/2 cup red wine or cooking wine

2 (28-oz.) cans whole peeled tomatoes

2/3 cup heavy cream

1 pound pappardelle pasta (I’d never even heard of this pasta. I love it now!)

Shaved Parmesan cheese

Basil leaves (my addition)

Sauté the first 3 ingredients in hot oil in a large skillet over medium high heat until tender. Add garlic and tomato paste and stir while cooking another 30 seconds. Transfer to your slow cooker or just another bowl and set aside.

Add beef to the skillet (I went ahead and gave it a conservative sprinkle of salt. The recipe doesn’t call for this since salt will be added later, but I wanted some of the salt to go ahead and cook into the meat.) Cook the beef until browned and crumbled. Stir in the salt and next 5 ingredients. Stir in the wine and cook, stirring occasionally, 7 more minutes, or until almost all the liquid has evaporated. Stir the veggie mixture back in and transfer to the slow cooker.

Drain the tomatoes, reserving the liquid. Crush the tomatoes with your hands and stir into the meat mixture in the slow cooker. Cover and cook on low for 5 or 6 hours. Stir in the cream. If you want your sauce thinner, just add the reserved tomatoe liquid a tiny bit at a time. (I did not have to add more liquid to mine.) Discard the bay leaf. Cook the pasta according the the package directions; drain. The SL recipe advises only using 4 cups of the sauce for the 1 pound of pasta. We like our pasta very “saucy” so I used it all!

Transfer the pasta to a serving dish and sprinkle with Parmesan cheese and basil!

Yall! This. Was. SO. Good. We loved this recipe and it was SO easy! I made the meat mixture on a Saturday afternoon and put it in the fridge over night. On that Sunday morning, I placed the meat mixture in the crock pot and let it do it’s thing all morning. When we got home from church, I stirred in the cream and cooked the pappardelle. I served it with Caesar salad and crusty rosemary bread from the grocery store. This meal looks and tastes a lot more time-consuming that it really was! My family raved over it and so I will most certainly be making this one again.

I have one more Italian recipe left in our tour. I’ll be back soon to share Tiramisu! I’ll go ahead and say that I liked the Tiramisu fine the day I made it but, oh my, the next day it was so much more wonderful!