Quick and Easy One-Hour Bolognese Recipe for Busy Weeknights

If you're looking for a faster way to make pasta bolognese for dinner, you're in the right spot. This pasta tastes like a sophisticated Sunday sauce, but with a cook time and process fit for a weeknight. With minimal chopping and relatively affordable ingredients, you can be on your way to a satisfying workweek dinner—perfect for dropping temperatures—in under an hour.

I shared a version of this recipe as a home cook on Epicurious a few years back, but have given it a little punch up in the last few years. This is the not-quite-traditional spaghetti bolognese I make when I don’t have four hours to do it the right way, but still want that meaty, tomato-y pasta goodness.

Sure, nothing beats an all-day meat sauce. If you have the time to spend, go ahead and check out classic versions of this recipe (like these ones by Marcella Hazan and Andy Baraghani). But by spending more time browning ingredients at the top of the cooking process and adding a few non-traditional ingredients (like smoked paprika and canned tomato sauce), you can achieve some of the depth of flavor usually added by a long simmer in less time.

It works, it tastes great, it’s hearty, it's a crowd pleaser, and it’s ready in an hour or less. It's become the most popular recipe on my website for the past few years for a reason, and it's something I make all the time, especially come winter.

Word to the wise: there's a lot of hurry up and wait at the beginning of the cooking process in this recipe, but that’s where the flavor is built, so be patient!

My Weeknight Spaghetti Bolognese Recipe

Prep time: 5-10 minutes

Cook time: 40-50 minutes

Servings: 4

Ingredients

• 3-4 tbsp. olive oil, split

• 1 lb. ground meat*

• 3-4 slices bacon, chopped (or 4 oz. package pancetta)

• ? medium onion, chopped

• 1 celery stalk, chopped

• 1 medium carrot, peeled, chopped

• 1 ? tsp. smoked paprika

• 3 cloves garlic, minced

• ? cup dry white wine

• 6 oz. can tomato paste

• 8 oz. can tomato sauce**

• 1 tsp. dried oregano

• ? tsp. ground nutmeg

• 2 dried bay leaves

• 1 cup low-sodium chicken or beef broth

• 2 Tbsp. milk

• 1 lb. bronze-cut spaghetti or pasta of your choice

• ? cup Italian flat leaf parsley, chopped

• ? cup parmigiano reggiano, grated

• Salt & pepper to taste

Notes

*I prefer a 50/50 split of pork and beef, but you can get great results with just pork or beef. I've even used Italian sausage removed from the casing when it was on sale.

**Lately, for whatever reason, this small size of tomato sauce or purée has been harder to find in my local grocery stores, in which case you can swap with 13-15 oz of crushed tomatoes (weight varies by brand). If using crushed tomatoes, I'd spring for the slightly more expensive brands like San Merican or Pomì (in the box).

Method

1. Brown the meat.

Heat a large sauté pan or dutch oven over medium high heat. Add 1-2 Tbsp oil and wait for it to shimmer. Break up ground meat a little with a wooden spoon and add a pinch of salt.

Cook 8-10 minutes, continuing to break meat into smaller pieces and stirring occasionally. You want your pan hot enough to evaporate any liquid the meat expels. Ultimately, the meat should be browned and starting to fry and crisp. At that point, scoop the meat out of the pan using a slotted spoon and set aside. If the pot has a lot of liquid/fat left in it, use a paper towel to wipe it out, leaving behind any browning on the bottom of the pan.

This process helps build flavor and prevent the greasy, broken-looking sauce you often get from short and easy meat sauce recipes.

2. Start the sauce base.

Add bacon (or pancetta) to pot and cook over medium heat, 3-4 minutes, until fat is rendered and meat starts to crisp. Add onion, carrot, and celery plus paprika and a pinch of salt. Add 1 Tbsp olive oil if the pan looks dry. Cook until the onions start to become translucent, about 5 minutes, then add garlic and cook another 1-2 minutes.

3. Build the sauce.

Return ground meat to pan and add wine. Using your spoon, smash the meat (sorry) into smaller pieces as the wine evaporates. Once wine has mostly cooked off, add tomato paste, nutmeg, and dried oregano and mix everything together. Cook 2-3 minutes, looking for the paste to darken slightly.

4. Simmer like you mean it.

Add stock, milk, bay leaves, and salt and pepper. Bring up to a boil, then down to a simmer. Simmer while you make the pasta/as long as you can stand to before you need to eat, stirring occasionally. Taste after 10 minutes and adjust seasoning accordingly. The longer you let this simmer, the better it'll be, but honestly, 10-20 minutes will do wonders.

5. Prepare for takeoff.

No matter how long you decide to simmer, when you’re about 8-10 minutes away from eating, add tomato sauce. Bring sauce back up to a medium high (until it starts to boil), stirring regularly, then back down to a medium low, allowing it to simmer. Make pasta according to the directions. Don’t forget to salt the water generously. When paste is al dente or a little less cooked than al dente, drain it, reserving some pasta water.

6. Bring it all together.

Add pasta to sauce and stir, adding a splash of pasta water as needed to loosen up the sauce and coat the noods. Turn off the heat and allow everything to sit in the pan for 1-2 minutes, then stir again. This will help the pasta pick up more sauce.

Garnish with parsley, parm, fresh cracked black pepper, and a drizzle of good olive oil and enjoy!