When I posted a picture of this dish on an instagram story (that was not even a great pic) I had several comments requesting the recipe. The good news is that it’s a pretty easy dish, as long as you have some left over bolognese sauce.

I usually make more than ample bolognese because the boys LOVE it, say it’s five stars and now that they eat lunch here several times a week, I have reasons to make it.

Personal Life Update

The twins (the boys you’ve seen my videos when they were little) are now 16 years old. This year they decided to step away from public school and do a hybrid home school program. This means they have two days a week to work in the bakery along with another one of their friends, Addison. All are in same program, and on the same mountain bike team. Their hard work and exercise deserve a real lunch at least twice a week.

Sixteenth Birthday with Friends

If this is your first time here, the twins Marshall and Ryder have been cooking in my kitchen since they were two years old, the same year I launched this blog. They have eaten almost every recipe here and have grown up around food preparation, cooking and baking. You may recognize them from early videos when they were only six years old.

When we go to restaurants, they keep a rating star system, which is a lot of fun, and they are spot on with their critiques. They give this bolognese FIVE STARS! (Although they eat this with pasta).

Bolognese

You can read all about bolognese at any of my several posts. My most recent post will round up all the various bolognese recipes I’ve made, and they are all great. Make anyone of them, but I’ve listed here a simple bolognese recipe. You can make double and freeze the rest if you like.

Spaghetti Squash

I like to use spaghetti squash instead of pasta for bolognese and that led to this delicious Italian casserole with ricotta cheese. Mix it all up, but save some bolognese and dollops of ricotta for the top.

What I Love About Spaghetti Squash Bolognese

This is Italian comfort food without too many carbs. It’s gluten free, keto friendly and delicious. It’s also good left over, makes a great post workout lunch. It’s versatile. You can use any kind of ground meat you desire, and put your own spin on it. You might not want to take the three house to make bolognese sauce (although you should), and you could use a quick stir-fried ground beef with carrot, celery, onion.

More Italian Dishes Using Spaghetti Squash

• Mushroom, Sausage Spaghetti Squash Casserole
• Three Cheese Spaghetti Squash Lasagna with Italian Sausage
• Spaghetti Squash with Shrimp, Tomatoes
• How to Make Spaghetti Squash

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Spaghetti Squash Bolognese with Ricotta

Low Carb Friendly Italian Spaghetti Squash Bolognese Casserole

Prep Time 20 minutes minutes

Cook Time 30 minutes minutes

Bolognese 3 hours hours 20 minutes minutes

Servings 4

Ingredients

• 4 cups cooked spaghetti squash (medium sized)
• 3 cups bolognese
• 1 1/2 cups ricotta cheese
• 2 tablespoons Parmesan Cheese
• 2 tablespoons freshly chopped herbs

Bolognese Sauce

• 2 carrots finely diced
• 1 small onion, finely diced
• 2 celery stalk, finely diced
• 1 1/2 pound ground beef
• 3/4 cup milk
• 3/4 cup white wine
• 1 cup San Marzano Tomatoes (canned)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon black pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Instructions

Bolognese Sauce

• Saute finely diced carrot, onion, in a tablespoon of butter and oil until softened, in pot. You can cook bolognese in this pot or once all ingredients are added, put in crock pot.
• Crumble ground beef into pan, stirring frequently until cooked through. Season with salt and pepper.
• Once meat is cooked, add milk. Add nutmeg.
• Once milk in incorporated and cooked down, add wine.
• Cook for ten more minutes to cook alcohol off, then add 1 cup canned San Marzano tomatoes. Mix through.
• Cook in crock pot for three hours or on top of stove. You can add a little water if bolognese gets dry. If you've used fatty meat like chuck, you might want to scoop off the extra oil.
• Make Spaghetti Squash
  
• Mix spaghetti squash with 1 cup of ricotta cheese. Save 1/2 cup to dollop.
• Mix with 2 cups bolognese. Save one cup to add to top.
• Add remaining bolognese and ricotta cheese to over top of casserole.
• Bake until heated through about 20 minutes at 400 degrees F.
  
• Once out of oven, top with herbs.
• Serve with Parmesan or Pecorino Romano.

Notes

Regarding Bolognese, you CAN use your own meatsauce.

The post Spaghetti Squash Bolognese with Ricotta appeared first on Spinach Tiger.

A true bolognese takes several hours for the flavors to meld together. Made with ground meat (usually beef), the “trinity” of carrots, onion, and celery, milk, wine and chopped tomatoes, it will take about twenty minutes standing at the stove to layer each ingredient. Then it’s super easy, and can cook in a crock pot for three to four hours.

You can make the original bolognese or any variation below. Whichever you make, know there’s a lot more you can do with bolognese asides pasta, so read all the way down.

Authentic Bolognese (from Marcella Hazan)

Authentic Bolognese

All of my variations on bolognese below start with the foundational recipe from the amazing, quintessential Italian Cook Book Queen, Marcella Hazan. In her book. We cooked from this marvelous cookbook, the Essentials of Classical Italian Cooking.   I wrote about her here and I was able to connect with her before she passed away.

At first glance, bolognese may seem daunting, because you do have to remain at the stove to add the ingredients in intervals, but once all the ingredients are incorporated, the bolognese braises for several hours without you.

Variations on Bolognese (Marcella Hazan)

In the Fall, I like to mix ground pork with beef and add in some chopped apple and sage for a FALL BOLOGNESE.

In the summer, I made a Pork and Peaches Bolognese.

Veal and Pork Bolognese

This is a classic combination. You could also change out the veal or the beef with ground lamb. Recipe for Veal and Pork Bolognese Here.

Once you know which bolognese you want to make, see this post on how to cook pasta like an Italian.

What to do with Leftover Bolognese

There are a lot of ways to use Bolognese.

• Shepherd’s Pie (use mashed potatoes or cauliflower mash)
• Italian Style Sloppy Joe’s
• Crepes
• Spaghetti Squash Bolognese Casserole (recipe coming)
• Keto Flatbread

Be Creative. Here I’ve used bolognese with a fun shaped pasta, some peas, and ricotta.

The post Five Bolognese Recipes for Cold Weather appeared first on Spinach Tiger.

Bolognese is not new here. However, this spaghetti bolognese recipe with pork is new and it has a twist for Autumn.

A typical bolognese starts with a mirepoix, a medley of onions, celery and carrots and ends with a lot of patience while it coks slowly for four hours. It’s very easy to get this started and, while building flavors does take layering the ingredients for about thirty minutes, once you have that done, you need do nothing. The magic happens in the low slow simmering, (or in the slow-cooker).

This spaghetti bolognese is new because I changed the recipe, using a combination of pork and beef. You can use all ground pork, but I think adding in some beef makes for a good balance.

Instead of celery, I took a chance and used a crisp mutsu apple, which is a bit tart, a bit sweet, and compliments the pork. Fresh sage adds that special something, complimenting the pork and the apple for that complex layering of  flavors, which is what bolognese is all about.

While the key ingredient in a bolognese is meat, because it’s a meat sauce, not a tomato sauce, all of the ingredients are important to create this orchestra of flavors.

The Truth about Easy Spaghetti Bolognese Recipe

This is really easy to do, but it’s not quick! I see some recipes out there for the thirty minute bolognese. That’s like trying to have a 30 minute chili. Don’t do it. What you can do, though, is get all your prep ready the day before, and go ahead and make a double batch, because once the last ingredient is in the pot, you’re done.

Once the mirepoix is softened and the meat is browned enough, milk is added, followed by white wine (not red), followed by tomatoes. This, however, is not a dish where everything is just dumped in a pot. It’s very important to take the time to allow the milk to evaporate, and then to allow wine to evaporate before adding the tomatoes.

Easy Spaghetti Bolognese Recipe is Versatile

I served this two ways, with spaghetti and with zoodles. I’ll admit to you, I was skeptical about going with zucchini as a base, but it works, and I highly recommend the OXO spiralizer as the easiest on the market to very quickly help you make some grain free alternatives.

You might want to make a lot of bolognese sauce and freeze some because it’s so versatile. Top it with mashed potatoes or mashed cauliflower and make shepherd’s pie. You could fill crepes or serve it in hamburger buns sloppy Joe’s style.

If you like this you will love my all beef authentic bolognese or this veal bolognese.

Make Sliders with Bolognese, perfect for tailgating.

More Italian Recipes from Spinach Tiger

Authentic Bolognese from Marcella Hazan

My Grandmother’s Authentic Italian Tomato Sauce

Peach and Pork Bolognese

Veal and Pork Bolognese

Shrimp with Tomato Onion Butter Sauce

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Fall's Best Spaghetti Bolognese with a Secret Ingredient

Prep Time 30 minutes minutes

Cook Time 3 hours hours

Total Time 3 hours hours 30 minutes minutes

Servings 8

Author Angela Roberts

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 medium to large sized onion diced
• 3 carrots peeled, diced
• 1 medium to large tart apple peeled, diced (see notes)
• 2 cups milk see notes to low-carb application
• dash of freshly ground nutmeg
• 2 cups white wine
• 1 28 - ounce can San Marzano Tomatoes ORDER HERE
• 1 1/2 pounds ground pork
• 1 pound ground beef
• handful fresh sage leaves optional
• handful parsley leaves
• 2 pounds pasta
• salt pepper

Instructions

• On medium heat, add oil, butter, onion, until translucent.
• Add celery, carrots, cook 2 minutes, stirring, not browning.
• Season meat with salt and pepper.
• Add meat, break up with fork, and when no pink color is showing.
• Add milk. Turn down heat to simmer, stirring frequently until milk has evaporated.
• Add nutmeg.
• Add wine, stirring thoroughly. Once wine has completely evaporated, add tomatoes, and simmer on very very low stirring every now and again. If sauce dries out, add ½ cup water a time. Cook for a minimum of 3 hours. I think 4-6 hours is better.
• Taste and season with salt, pepper.

Notes

I used a mutsu apple, which is a very crisp apple. (also known as crispin). Replace with a honey crisp or granny smith.

This site contains affiliate links that earn a small commission, supporting the operation of Spinach Tiger. 

The post Spaghetti Bolognese Recipe with Pork, Apples, Fresh Sage appeared first on Spinach Tiger.

I love shepherd’s pie, especially once the weather turns cold.

These low-carb cauliflower crust shepherd’s pie recipes are just as delicious as any shepherd’s pie or cottage pie with mashed potatoes. These are great for diabetics watching their glycemic count and for the paleo-keto life style.

If you make the cauliflower correctly (using no extra liquid), you’ll think they are potatoes.

In this version, I just added in butter and a drop of the water I boiled the cauliflower in. So simple. So easy. In the above version, I used left over bolognese sauce. You can take any ragu, stew, or meat filling and make a fantastic shepherd’s pie. Just save your leftovers like I did using the meat fillings below.

You want to make sure you brown the crust without burning it. You can brush it with butter or sprinkle freshly grated parmesan or use a cheese of your choice. In one version, I used cheddar.

The mistake I made in the past was putting my shepherd’s pie under the broiler. That can be a bit nerve racking. I’ve found that putting the shepherd’s pie in the oven and topping it off with a little butter and grated pecorino or parmigiano reggiano is a better way to go. No need to temp fate (burning) with a broiler.

Keep this recipe in mind once the holidays roll around. Make your favorite stew, and save the leftovers for a shepherd’s pie.

I used this cauliflower mash recipe. This was made with just olive oil, salt and pepper. You can also use butter. It looks just like fluffy mashed potatoes, the comfort food of all of our childhoods.

 Use Leftovers Make Cauliflower Crust Shepherd’s Pie Recipes

Number 1: I made this cauliflower shepherd’s pie with this left over roast beef, topped off with cheddar cheese.

Number 2: Use this Bolognese Sauce which is pictured at the top.

Number 3: You could also use the veal bolognese from this recipe. 

Number 4: Use leftovers from this Italian Beef Stew made with turips. (Just cut it up finer).

Number 5 Here’s one of my absolutely favorite ground beef recipes. Ground beef with Peas and Onions. This is super easy, better than it looks and everyone who makes this loves it. I

f you want to keep it low carb, try green pepper instead of the peas. Add kale and pancetta for an Italian take.

Number 6:   This is a bonus. If you want decadent, this is a more complex shepherd’s pie recipe of beef, veal and red wine. Just replace the potatoes with cauliflower.

No matter what you choose to do when making Cauliflower Crust Shepherd’s Pie, make it easy for yourself.

More Cauliflower Recipes from Spinach Tiger

One Pan Chicken and Cauliflower Rice

Shrimp Creole with Cauliflower Rice

Italian Wedding Soup with Cauliflower Rice

The post Five Low-Carb Cauliflower Crusted Shepherd’s Pie Recipes appeared first on Spinach Tiger.

If you served me meat sauce as a child, my reaction would be a bit dramatic. I would probably cry real tears because meat sauce had bad memories for me and was known as babysitter sauce. The only meat sauce ever served to me was by three babysitters on three separate unhappy occasions. I admit to you that I was known to cry when the food got messed up and the recipes altered.

But no one outside of babysitters ever served a meat sauce. It wasn’t done, because bolognese is far from baby sitter meat sauce.

All grown-up I cook what I love and several years ago I led a cooking group on-line called Cooking Italy. We cooked from this marvelous cookbook, the Essentials of Classical Italian Cooking.   World Cookbook legend, Marcella Hazan,  wrote a cookbook that remains beloved to this day. I wrote about her here and I was able to connect with her before she passed away.



On that day six years ago, we virtually visited Bologna, capital of the northern region of Italy, Emilia-Romanga. I only started making bolognese then,  and I became obsessed and curious about the variety of recipes I have found. Since that time, I had had the pleasure of eating bolognese in Italy, and I still come back to Marcella Hazan’s bolognese sauce as the standard.

You have all seen, and probably eaten, a typical meat sauce with spaghetti. Chunks of ground beef, tomato, onion, and who knows what thrown together with some tomatoes for maybe an hour. You can even buy it in a jar.

And, if I’m sounding like an Italian foodie snob, please understand my very peculiar family who lived by food rules. Every Italian family has them, in America and especially in Italy. It’s the only “honor” my family exercised with full commitment. Any “sin” could be confessed and forgiven…except food sins, which and still are unforgivable.

One of our strictest rules was that no one in the family would make a meat sauce or eat a sauce from a jar anywhere, not even to be polite. It would be unthinkable, because it was viewed as the sign of not being Italian.

It would be like eating wonder bread in a french bakery. If a meat sauce would have been served at a large family gathering, it would look something like this. My Aunt Rita would start whispering, “what is this, who made this.” My mother would lean in and smell it, and ask where it came from. My grandmother would just make a terrible gesture and say, “americano.” She was born in America, but she would do that.

Here today with a new set of eyes and a better culinary understanding of Italian food, I am presenting to you the quintessential Italian meat sauce of the world, authentic Bolognese, and  one I am very proud to serve.  It will bring you closer to Italian cuisine, where I still believe the other kind of meat sauce brings you further away.

I had to reset my thinking. I used to think of meat sauce as a tomato sauce with big chunks of meat and onion. While that might be true here in America, the Bolognese meat sauce is completely different.

Bolognese Sauce is a meat sauce with tomato, not a tomato sauce with meat.

Tomato sauce and meat sauce are distinctly different. When I want a tomato sauce, I want a fresh tasting, bright burst of flavor that is cooked for a very short time. The ragú (as the Bolognese call it) is a sultry, savory sauce sweetened by the soffritto of onions, celery and carrots and cooked forever, a minimum of three hours once the last ingredient has been added.

Aside from using bolognese for a typical wide handmade pasta such as tagliatelle or papparadelle, you can top polenta, crepes or even rice with this delicious ragû. Since this is time consuming, but not difficult, make a double or even triple batch and freeze it. You will regret it if you don’t.

It is perfectly served with tagliatelle pasta, or a wider pappardelle. See This Pasta Post for Details and the tool that will give you the perfect width noodle of your choice, called the pasta bike.

The Process for Marcella Hazan’s Bolognese Sauce

The soffritto is prepared mostly in butter with a little vegetable oil and this is already a departure from southern Italian cooking that does not use butter. Ground chuck is then added into this vegetable mix, followed by milk until it evaporates, followed by white wine until it evaporates.

Soffritto means sub-cooked or under fried, because of the small amount of oil used often with butter to cook vegetables as the base of the dish. Onions, carrots and celery, also known as the “trinity” is the medley used in northern Italian cooking.

The idea is to slowly soften the onion without browning, and then add in the carrots and celery and allow them to absorb the onion flavor which will be mild and sweet, not harsh. Marcella uses a larger portion of celery and carrots than I’ve seen in many other recipes and I agree with her.  I now find myself using a soffritto for so many dishes.

Surprisingly, Marcella leaves out pancetta, frequently seen in other recipes, but the large addition of vegetables and a lower ratio of tomatoes makes her bolognese work. Marcella adds the milk to the meat before the wine, and uses white wine, not red wine that I’ve seen in many other recipes. In my pork centric bolognese, I add the pancetta back in and use that recipe for Italian sloppy Joe’s.

The hardest part of the cooking process for authentic bolognese is waiting patiently between steps, as the vegetables soften, the meat cooks, and the milk and wine completely evaporate. This is NOT a throw it all into a crock pot and go to work dish. Having said that, you could prepare the sauce and once the last ingredient has been added, move it to a crock pot and cook on low for the day.

The Pasta
As far as pasta goes, you can enjoy this with a store bought pappardelle, or you can choose to make this pasta with tips on pasta machines.

It came as a shocking surprise that the method I came up with on my own, is the same as Marcella’s outside of her longer kneading period and my insistence on resting the dough. So I’m going to give you my pasta recipe and you can certainly use hers, as I do recommend this book to get every detail.

Now that I understand the genius of Bolognese sauce, I will no longer cry at the table. How about you? Was there a food in childhood that would just set you off?

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Veal & Pork Bolognese

A Year of Cooking Marcella Hazan Recipes

More Pastas Dishes

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Cooking Italy: Bolognese Sauce with Fresh Pasta

A classic Bolognese sauce from Marcella Hazan's Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking

Course Entree

Cuisine Italian

Prep Time 30 minutes minutes

Cook Time 4 hours hours

Total Time 4 hours hours 30 minutes minutes

Servings 4

Author Angela Roberts

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 6 tablespoons butter plus 2 T for tossing pasta
• 1 cup chopped onion
• 1 1/3 cup chopped celery
• 1 1/2 cup chopped carrot
• 1 1/2 pounds ground beef chuck mixed with salt and pepper before cooking
• meat should not be too lean, ask for neck portion of chuck
• salt
• black pepper freshly ground
• 2 cups whole milk
• whole nutmeg 1/4 t
• 2 cup dry white wine
• 3 cups canned imported Italian plum tomatoes with juice chopped
• 2 bay leaves
• 2 pounds pasta
• freshly grated parmigiano-reggiano cheese at the table

Instructions

• On medium heat, add oil, butter, onion, until translucent.
• Add celery, carrots, cook 2 minutes, stirring, not browning. Add meat, break up with fork, and when no pink color is showing, add milk.
• Turn down heat to simmer, stirring frequently until milk has evaporated. Add nutmeg. Add wine, stirring thoroughly. Once wine has completely evaporated, add tomatoes, and simmer on very very low stirring every now and again. If sauce dries out, add 1/2 cup water a time. Cook for a minimum of 3 hours. I think 4-6 hours is better.
• Taste and season with salt, pepper.

Notes

This recipe is a double batch, which I recommend, as you will eat it all. You can freeze, or make other dishes with it, such as bolognese sliders.

The post Authentic Marcella Hazan Bolognese Sauce with Fresh Pasta appeared first on Spinach Tiger.

The legendary Marcella Hazan passed away one year ago on September 29th. A few years ago, I not only became enamored with her teaching and her famous cookbook, the Essentials of Classical Italian Cooking, I became captivated by her story and her approach to Italian cooking, and wrote about it here, featuring the many dishes I have made from her teaching.

This week I sat in Milan and had the opportunity to eat green lasagna, which answered the question for me as to how well I captured the recipe. Let me quickly answer your question first.

What is green lasagna? Funny enough, it was a “green lasagna” google search in 2008 that led me a blog, which led me to founding Spinach Tiger. However, I had a different green lasagna in mind, and it would be a few years until I would discover what green lasagna is to a true Italian.

Green lasagna is made with green (spinach) noodles, and layered with bolognese and bechemel. It’s not a ricotta and spinach filling, as I once thought. The Italians reserve that mainly for ravioli and that can be found all over Northern Italy. The green lasagna was not so easy to come by, and sometime next week, I’ll show you what it looked like and how very similar it was to this dish.

This is not the heavy lasagna we are all most familiar with. However, it is a very rich dish.

Green Lasagna is a bit of process to make, but no more complicated than a good mac and cheese. The bolognese takes time to prepare. While bolognese is fairly easy to put together, it requires several hours to simmer.

Bolognese is not a spaghetti sauce, in that it’s not a tomato sauce with meat, but it’s rather a meat sauce with some tomato, made gently soothing by the addition of white wine and milk. I encourage you to make a triple batch of bolognese because it freezes well and is quite suitable for a wide pasta such as a papparadelle, crepes, risotto, or even my American twist of the sloppy Joe, using a different Marcella bolognese recipe, with pancetta, sausage, beef and pork,  which is probably my favorite. The first bolognese I tried is also very good but only uses one meat.

You can make two pans of green lasagna and freeze one, which is another recommendation.

The beauty of this dish is its balance and delicate flavor. Green lasagna is very rich and not meant to be eaten in a large portion, and remember there is always tomorrow.

First, choose which bechemel sauce you want to use. For this dish, I would probably go with the all beef bolognese. (Link inside recipe).

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Baked Green Lasagna with Meat Sauce, Bolognese Style

Authentic Green Lasagna adapted from Essentials of Classical Italian Cooking from Marcella Hazan.

Course Entree

Cuisine Italian

Prep Time 1 hour hour

Cook Time 4 hours hours

Total Time 5 hours hours

Servings 8

Author Angela Roberts

Ingredients

• !Bolognese Recipe found here

Spinach Pasta Recipe Ingredients

• 6 ounces fresh spinach rinsed, dried thoroughly
• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 2 large eggs
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

Bêchemel Sauce Ingredients

• 3 cups milk
• 6 tablespoons butter
• 4 1/2 tablespoons flour
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• dash of nutmeg

Instructions

Spinach Pasta Instructions

• Mix spinach and flour together before adding egg. You can do by hand or in mixer with dough hook.
• Knead for about 5 minutes (if by hand).
• Wrap in plastic. Rest dough 30 minutes. During this time you can make Bêchemel sauce. Rolls out into wide 10 inch strips as thin as you can without tearing. You are going to make six layers of this pasta, but it will be as light as a feather.
• Cook pasta in large pot of salted water, a few at a time. Blanch for a minute or less, and immediately put into bowl of ice water. Remember to keep changing water with every few pasta strips to keep it ice cold. Then squeeze water out of pasta and dry on clean towels. This is important so pasta will not get mushy. It feels funny to wring out pasta, but it works.

Bechemel Sauce Instructions

• Heat milk to a strong simmer. Heat flour and butter together without browning flour. Remove from heat.
• Add hot milk to flour-butter mixture one tablespoon at a time. Put back on the heat and cook stirring constantly until thick.

Assembly

• Reserve enough bechemel sauce for the top. Mix remaining bechemel with bolognese sauce f
• or the inside layers and top it with bêchemel. Top with Parmesan.
• Bake until bubbly at 400 degrees in uppermost rack of oven. Marcella suggests no longer than 15 minutes. If refrigerated, cook longer.
• Left over spinach lasagna noodles (or make extra) are delicious with just the sauce.

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The post Baked Green Lasagna with Meat Sauce, Bolognese Style appeared first on Spinach Tiger.