Easy sugar free homemade bolognaise recipe!
This recipe will make between 10 and 20 servings of bolognaise sauce.
Ingredients:
2 medium onions – chopped into small pieces
2 medium sized cloves of garlic – crushed
1 carrot – sliced
1kg of minced meat
1 jar of passata
2-3 tbsps of tomato puree
1 teaspoon of yeast extract (this is used in place of stock cubes, which often contain sugar)
Pepper
4 bay leaves
2 tbsps of dried oregano
Other herbs and vegetables can be added as available
Water (see method for quantity)
Method:
- Combine all the ingredients together in a large oven proof dish – I use a stoneware dish. Pour water over the mixture and ensure that the mixture is completely covered (to prevent burning).
- Turn the oven to 180 degrees C and put in the oven for 1 hour. After half an hour, check on the bolognaise and give it a stir, to prevent it from burning. (You can also add more water at this point if necessary).
Once cooked the bolognaise could be added to cooked spaghetti and eaten, but I usually split it into around 5 portions and freeze it. Each portion will be enough to feed my family of four (I have two young kids). I think it tastes even better when cooked the second time around!
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Interesting idea about oven cooking it, I would never have thought of that! Very low maintenance compared to the cooking on the hob method I normally use. I will have to try this. What are your thoughts on the energy aspects of cooking on a hob vs oven? And what about a slow cooker (do you have one)?
Cooking in bulk and freezing is something we already do and it's such a good time saver! I agree that certain things taste better when reheated.
Tips to make this recipe slightly more tasty (thinking back to your article about your husband with the food) try adding a bit more garlic. 2 cloves for 20 portions sounds a bit stingy to me. You could try adding more onions too as they tend to add a sweet taste (maybe red onions too?). Also you could try adding paprika which goes really well with bolognaise I find (pretty sure that doesn't contain sugar or salt?)
We have solar panels and when the sun is shining it makes more sense to batch cook in the oven than use the hob as the electricity is free to us… I'm not sure how it directly compares with cooking something on the hob, but as the oven has greater capacity ideally I would cook several things at once while it is on, making best use of the energy… My husband has been talking about getting a slow cooker for a while, but as I am currently undertaking a challenge to buy nothing new (or secondhand), I don't want to get one. Plus I think they take up lots of room and I'm not sure that I really need one…
Thanks for your tips to make the recipe tastier. I have loads of paprika as I bought a large bag of it to use in my houmous recipe, so I will definitely try that next time. I will try adding a bit more garlic again, but I did spend ages experimenting with garlic in the recipe a while ago and decided this amount worked for me. I do use red onions sometimes and will try adding a few more to see if that makes the recipe tastier!