Easy homemade spaghetti bolognaise sauce

Easy homemade spaghetti bolognaise sauce

Do your kids love spaghetti bolognaise?

Are you after a really tasty recipe that’s a cinch to make and your kids will eat?

What about if you could turn leftover bolognaise sauce into taco mix or nachos the next day?

This recipe was adapted by me from the one in Stephanie Alexander’s book, the Cook’s companion.

Serves 4 people. (Double all quantities if you want some for freezing)

Here’s what you need:

1 brown onion, finely diced

2 cloves garlic, finely chopped or minced

1 celery stalk peeled and finely diced (this is optional, if you don’t have celery it works fine without it. If your kids don’t like celery, don’t worry, you can’t taste it!)

500g beef mince (I buy grassfed mince, but whatever you prefer)

2 tsp cornflour (or plain flour if you don’t have cornflour)

½ c dry white wine (reisling, sauvignon blanc etc)

1 tin crushed/diced tomatoes

2 tbsp tomato paste (I buy the sachets because they’re already pre-measured)

2 cups chicken or vegetable stock (I cheat and use 2 cups water with massel stock cubes)

Method:

On low heat, heat about 1 -2 tbsp olive oil and saute the onion and garlic. Sprinkling with salt will help prevent it burning.

When soft and pale, add your beef mince and turn up the heat to high.

Break up the mince and when it’s nearly all cooked sprinkle over the cornflour and stir well. (The cornflour helps to absorb all the water/juices that have come out of the mince when cooking and helps to thicken the sauce up).

Once most of the juices are absorbed, add the wine. The wine will reduce and when it’s nearly all absorbed, add the tinned tomatoes, tomato paste and stock.

Stir to combine. Add a bit more salt, and add black pepper.

Once it starts to bubble turn the heat down to low and simmer for roughly 30-40 minutes, or until it’s a consistency you like.

I sometimes add a few tsps of dried oregano with the salt and pepper.

Serve with pasta of your choice.

*To double the recipe, double all ingredients except the wine and stock, as it will end up too liquidy and take forever to cook. Instead add only about ¾ C wine and 3 C stock.

Sometimes, my family want bolognaise but I don’t feel like pasta, so I take out half the bolognaise sauce and add a tin of drained, rinsed red kidney beans. I add some chilli powder, heat it all through and serve it with steamed rice and chopped fresh parsley.

If you want to turn it into beef taco mixture, I add cumin powder, paprika, cayenne pepper and chili. The amounts depend on how much bolognaise sauce you have left. Add a little bit of each and taste. Keep adding until you get the flavour you want. Remember cayenne pepper is quite hot! Add kidney beans and corn kernels if you want to bulk it out some more.