The Best Pasta Bolognese You'll Ever Make (Restaurant-Quality)

I'm Lish Steiling.

I'm a professional chef,

and today, I'm gonna show you the real way

to make bolognese.

We are talking silky, savory, comforting bolognese.

This is Bolognese 101.

The misconceptions of bolognese are pretty much

that it's just a meat and tomato sauce.

The layers of flavor in this recipe are everything.

From browning the meat,

to adding the vegetables,

to making sure that you caramelize the tomato paste,

to reducing the milk,

to adding the wine,

all of it has a purpose.

It takes time and patience,

but really, it's not complicated.

[upbeat music]

A Dutch oven is perfect for a sauce like this

because it cooks for a really long time.

The bottom is nice and heavy,

so that you prevent scorching.

So you're gonna get 'er going over medium-high-ish heat.

Add a good amount of olive oil to the bottom of this pan.

So our oil is dancing in the pan.

It's moving freely, leaving ribbons.

I'm gonna start with my ground beef.

I'm using 80/20 here,

[pot sizzling]

and I'm gonna start to brown that.

As this beef is cooking,

I'm breaking it up with a wooden spoon

'cause I want all of that meat to be nice and fine,

so that it clings to the pasta.

I'm not gonna cook it fully here

because I'm gonna add the vegetables,

and as those cook,

the meat will continue to cook and start to brown.

So it's, again, just layering all of these flavors.

You can see there's even some fat rendering out

from the meat.

Onion, finely chopped.

A carrot, finely chopped as well.

The carrot adds sweetness.

And then a rib of celery

because, again, it's just the magic of the trinity,

the mirepoix.

Season with some salt,

because we're building our flavors here.

Each ingredient deserves to taste the best that it can,

and that means each ingredient needs salt,

so you layer along the way.

I like to hand dice all of my vegetables.

You can also do it in a food prep.

There's no shame in that game.

So now, we're gonna let this cook until the meat starts

to brown a little bit.

This should take about five to seven minutes.

Bolognese is not a sauce

that you wanna start on a Monday night at 8:00 pm.

It takes time,

it takes patience,

but the building of flavor is worth it,

and it all comes from the technique.

My meat is starting to get a little bit of color on it,

and the vegetables are starting to soften.

So this is only gonna take a couple more minutes

to get just that whisper of golden brown on the meat,

vegetables soft all the way through.

So I am pretty much there.

They're starting to get some browning around the edge.

A little bit of garlic goes in,

about two cloves.

I add it after sweating out the vegetables

and browning the meat a little bit

'cause you don't wanna overcook and brown the garlic

and risk it tasting bitter.

I'm scraping up all the bits that might be sticking

to the bottom a little bit,

getting the spoon around the side.

Couple minutes longer.

While that's cooking, I'm gonna crush some tomatoes.

So I have a can of San Marzano tomatoes

that I'm gonna hand crush,

and honestly, it helps with finding out

if there's any of those pesky nubbins left.

Like, you can see right there,

that's actually the little nubbin from the tomato.

You don't wanna bite into that.

Canned tomatoes are picked at their peak

and canned at their peak,

so you always know that you're gonna have

that consistent in-season tomato flavor.

I'm starting to get the browning at the bottom of the pan,

which is exactly what we want.

So now, tomato paste, double concentrate.

About 1/4 cup or so goes

into a little cleared section of the pot

because we wanna toast it.

We wanna bring out all the caramelly goodness

and the natural sweetness of the tomato paste,

and we do that by adding heat to it

and cooking it in some of that oil

that's already in the pan.

You can already see the tomato paste is nice and toasted,

and the color changed.

Now, I'm mixing it back into the meat.

That brown goodness at the bottom of the pan,

known as the fond,

is starting to stick even more.

So now, it's time to deglaze it,

so that we don't scorch it.

So now, we add the milk.

Milk is a pretty classic ingredient

when it comes to making bolognese.

Milk used to be there just for tenderizing the meat

because the cut of meat that they would use was so tough.

Now, we keep it in there

because it balances out the acid of the tomatoes.

It adds sweetness and richness to the sauce,

and it still tenderizes the meat slightly,

leaving you with a very silky mouthfeel

when you eat the sauce.

So this is gonna go until the milk

is practically completely evaporated and reduced.

You wanna give it some attention as it does this.

It's gonna take about 20 minutes.

You wanna keep stirring the bottom,

so that you don't burn the bottom of the pan.

It's gonna start to look a little almost separated,

and that's okay.

That's what you want, actually.

Everything's gonna come together in the end.

It has been about 20 minutes,

and when I tell you that I could stop right here

and eat it, I'm not lying.

The milk is almost entirely evaporated,

but it's changed the look of the meat.

It seems silkier.

It seems more velvety.

I can scrape the mixture to a side,

and there's not liquid left.

That's your indicator that you're ready for the next step.

I'm going to add about a cup of red wine to the mixture.

This is gonna add depth of flavor.

It's going to add acid.

It adds a little character and backbone.

It's layering those flavors.

So now, we're gonna let the wine reduce.

It's been about 10 or 12 minutes.

We're back pretty much to the same spot

that I was with the whole milk.

It leaves a little clean space in the bottom of the pan.

It's still so silky.

Look at that.

So now, at this point,

I'm gonna add my hand crushed tomatoes

over the back of the spoon,

so that it doesn't splash.

I'm gonna nestle in a little aromatic.

Bay leaf adds almost a grassy eucalyptus note to it.

So I just use dry bay leaf.

So now, the secret ingredient is the Parmesan rind,

which is completely edible,

and we're gonna throw it in the sauce,

so that all of that nutty goodness from the cheese,

all that flavor goes into the sauce.

So I'm taking about half of that rind,

nestling that in there along with the bay leaf.

Tuck it away.

I'm gonna see where we're at on seasoning.

I'm gonna add just a little bit of salt,

'cause it's gonna reduce,

so I don't wanna season too much now,

but I still want all of the ingredients

to taste the best that they can.

Now, I'll let it simmer for about two hours.

You still wanna give it a stir,

maybe every 15, 20 minutes or so,

just to prevent it from burning at the bottom of the pan.

So this sauce looks perfect right now.

It is reduced.

You can see that it's all about the meat.

The texture is beautiful and silky.

This is gonna be perfect picked up

with some tagliatelle or pappardelle,

any kind of thicker, flat noodle.

Perfection.

[upbeat music]

The marriage of the sauce and pasta together,

you toss it together so that the sauce coats the pasta.

It's not just on top.

It's a whole dance that happens in the pan

that makes the magic happen.

The sauce bolognese

is ready to use however you want to use it,

however I want to use it,

and in this case, it's gonna be with pasta,

tagliatelle.

Generously season our pasta water.

This is your one opportunity to season your pasta.

The pasta is gonna absorb the water.

So I'm just gonna drop in some fresh tagliatelle here,

two bunches.

A flat, wide pasta is the best to use

for this sauce because it clings

to the pasta incredibly well.

While the pasta cooks,

I am going to warm up some pasta sauce,

our bolognese.

In Italy, you would never get pasta

that just has sauce plopped on top.

It's always tossed.

It needs to coat the pasta.

I'm gonna turn on this burner.

Warm the sauce up a little bit.

I'm adding a little bit of pasta water,

just to loosen it and help warm it through.

It's probably maybe about 1/4 of a cup's worth.

Pasta should be close.

Let's see what we got.

Love.

Pasta in.

Oh my goodness.

So imagine if you just put the sauce on top.

Then, you have to take the pasta.

You have to take some sauce.

You have to make your bite, right?

This way, every single piece of pasta

is coated in the sauce.

This is the love, people.

Little bit more pasta water

'cause we want it to coat well.

Little bit of olive oil.

So you really just wanna toss the pasta around.

You can do this with tongs,

or you can do the flip.

If you don't feel comfortable with the flip,

don't worry about it.

Tongs are your best friend.

You just wanna make sure

that the pasta is coated in the sauce.

We are about there.

I'm gonna add some Parmigiano Reggiano

to finish at the end here.

Once this is added in, I'm gonna turn off the heat,

because you don't wanna continue to cook the cheese.

You just wanna toss it with the pasta.

Oh my God.

All right, we're ready to plate.

Look at this, huh?

Every strand is coated in the sauce, I mean.

Oh yeah.

Just a little nest.

A showering of parm regg.

This is my perfect bowl of pasta bolognese.

[bright music]

Yes.

Mm! Let me tell you.

The flavors of this bolognese,

it's sweet, it's savory.

You taste every single step,

the flavors that you've built throughout the process.

You took your time, you did it right, and it shows.

This is a pasta sauce

that I have made many, many times in my career, in my life,

and it never gets old.

To me, this is the real way to make bolognese,

and it really pays off.