Marcella Hazan’s Bolognese Sauce Recipe (2024)

I cannot comment of the taste of the sauce. It was cooling and I ran a short errand. In the meantime, my 8 year old Labrador Retriever, Jake, (who had never, ever bothered anything in the kitchen) somehow got the pot off of the cooktop and ate all of the sauce. The worst part was that I had tripled the recipe, so Jake ate 3 pounds of Bolognese sauce! I am certain he would rate the sauce a 5. We had to go out for dinner, but I will make the recipe again and post relevant feedback!PS Jake is fine.

At the end of the cooking process am I to remove the separated fat. I'm new to this.

I've been making this sauce for 25 years. It comes out great every time. I can say that it works with ground beef or a mixture of beef, pork and/or veal. I can also say that this sauce is 97.32% as good after 1 hour as it is after 3 hours, so if you're impatient. Noting that it takes about 1 hour to get to step 4, so if you started cooking a bit late, when you get to step 4, you can eat it with minimal reduction in quality after one hour of cooking.

Marcella has never never let me down. No exception here. If you have had less than a satisfactory result, less thaN a religious experience, try this:1.Do what she says—EXACTLY.2.Tell Alexa to play Puccini or Verdi3.Use the heavy bottom pot.4.Do NOTHING to make any step happen more quickly.7.Don’t deviate from her instructions.You will have a different result. Tanti saluti.

Authentic. Using a broad, flat noodle such as parpadelle is essential. Chop the vegetables pretty fine- they seem to disappear, but are actually part of the chunks in the ragu. The tip about using a little butter and a little starchy pasta water to toss the sauce with the pasta is also important. And spring for the real Parmesan-Reggiano- desecrating a five-hour ragu with stuff from the green can would not only be disastrously counter-productive and sad, but borderline immoral. :)

This the the best Bolognese recipe there is in my opinion. Btw... Ground chuck is 80/20 ground beef. That is also known as 80%. Any leaner beef and the sauce would not be correct. We do not find it too fatty in the least. You need the butter and whole milk for this sauce to be the way it is supposed to be. Using turkey and skim milk might give you a tasty end result, but it is not Marcella's sauce. As far as I am concerned this recipe is perfect as written . No changes necessary.

I am making this right now and it is going great. I really just wanted to say that I love the expression, "laziest of simmers".

Marcella hailed from the Northern Adriatic coast, where seafood was the most commonly available. She only learned to cook after she was married, trying to please Victor, who was and is an oenophile. She was a gifted cook. I wonder how many of the complainers bothered with the nutmeg...it is the most defining flavor in a true Bolognese sauce, which this most definitely is

I've been making this for over 30 years. I cook it exactly for 5 hours. The difference in the taste when you cook it for 3 hours (more bland) and 5 hours is incredible and well worth the time. It ends up being a thick, concentrated sauce that you don't pour on top of the pasta but that you toss into the pasta.

No; it's just a signal that it's finished cooking ("ready to eat"). When sauce cooks long enough that the fat separates it 1) improves the taste of the ingredients, and 2) improves the appearance of the dish. Separated fat looks and tastes beautiful in a dish--it often takes on the deepest colors and flavors in the pot, and is one measure that separates an amateur's dish from a professional's. So, yes! The fat is meant to stay in the pot!

I've made this sauce many times, and I like it for what it is. I love to doctor things, too, but sometimes a classic is a classic. That being said, I would add two observations:
-Fresh, blanched, peeled, and chopped tomatoes work well, too. Lean toward longer cooking time. Haven't needed to add water when using fresh.
-I finely mince the vegetables, particularly the carrot and celery. Otherwise, it has a "beef stew" appearance that my family finds less appealing.

Oh goodness no! Fear not the fat! Fear the pasta more.

I am NOT a cook but this was pretty easy to follow and it turned out great. Really not much too it; the key is patience and plenty of it. I let mine simmer for 4 hours. Surprised to see no garlic or herbs like a typical pasta sauce, but those ingredients were not missed at all. Next time I would double the recipe to stock the freezer.

I learned cooking from Marcella’s book by exactly doing what she writes. I also did this very delicious recipe, which is very similar what you eat in Bologna. At the end the sauce was slightly dry though, although I had rather fatty meat, does anyone has suggestions for it?

Thanks to Chloe for the tip to use the oven. It definitely adds another flavor profile to the dish: it tasted "smoky" to me. I found 300° cooked it too fast. 200° produced the proper simmer.

I LOVE this sauce. It's amazing! Whatever you, do NOT stray from the recipe. It's perfect.

Meh! After seeing all the rave reviews I was excited to try this. After 4 hours, I ended up with a boring and bland sauce that was certainly not worth the effort or the ingredients. No garlic? No herbs or spices. And milk? I've made better sauces with no recipe in a quarter of the time. Why does everyone like this so much?

I made this sauce but don't eat beef so just used pork and it was fantastic. I will never go back to buying sauce in a jar.

Tripled this and made exactly as written except I accidentally do oubled the fresh nutmeg- no one could telll ! It was amazing and delicious!

My book said add the wine first and then the milk. Glad I got the correct version. Maybe that's why I failed.at being a yuppie and had to become a carpenter

from the hard cover:>"add salt immediately when sauteing the meat to extract its juices for the subsequent benefit of the sauce."> "use a pot that retains heat. Earthenware is preferred in Bologna (and elsewhere), but enameled cast iron pans or pots whose heavy bottom is composed of layers of steel aloys are fully satisfactory."

Plan to be near the stove for much of the day. But it is so worth it in the end. It’s a great recipe to cook when it is snowing or raining and being outside is not tempting.

Of course, Marcella’s best recipe was her simple tomato sauce. Can tomatoes and whole cut onion simmered for 20 minutes. The best bolognese sauce hands down is Massimo Bottura’s.

What can you sub for the milk if you can't eat dairy?

If you don’t eat red meat, don’t be discouraged by the comments that turkey cannot be used as a meat substitute. An unctuous version of Bolognese can be made with turkey if you sauté it in rendered duck fat. Will it taste like beef? Of corse not, but you will not be disappointed. (Duck fat is also a great addition to turkey meatballs.) I’d also suggest that a little Worcestershire sauce will give the turkey a flavor boost that won’t throw off the taste of the sauce.

To ease up on chopping, I process the onion, carrot and celery in the food processor.

I love her simple tomato sauce recipe with the tomato, onion, butter but despite following instructions to a T, I was not impressed with this bolognese. Given the time and ingredients involved, it didn't taste bad but it just wasn't better than quicker recipes. Jaime Oliver's Jools Pasta sauce is quicker and to my family, family tasting.