Marcella Hazan’s Bolognese Sauce
Updated May 13, 2025
- Total Time
- At least 4 hours
- Rating
- Comments
- Read comments
Ingredients
- 1tablespoon vegetable oil
- 3tablespoons butter plus 1 tablespoon for tossing the pasta
- ½cup chopped onion
- ⅔cup chopped celery
- ⅔cup chopped carrot
- ¾pound ground beef chuck (or you can use 1 part pork to 2 parts beef)
- Salt
- Black pepper, ground fresh from the mill
- 1cup whole milk
- Whole nutmeg
- 1cup dry white wine
- 1½cups canned imported Italian plum tomatoes, cut up, with their juice
- 1¼ to 1½pounds pasta
- Freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano at the table
Preparation
- Step 1
Put the oil, butter and chopped onion in the pot and turn the heat on to medium. Cook and stir the onion until it has become translucent, then add the chopped celery and carrot. Cook for about 2 minutes, stirring vegetables to coat them well.
- Step 2
Add ground beef, a large pinch of salt and a few grindings of pepper. Crumble the meat with a fork, stir well and cook until the beef has lost its raw, red color.
- Step 3
Add milk and let it simmer gently, stirring frequently, until it has bubbled away completely. Add a tiny grating — about ⅛ teaspoon — of nutmeg, and stir.
- Step 4
Add the wine, let it simmer until it has evaporated, then add the tomatoes and stir thoroughly to coat all ingredients well. When the tomatoes begin to bubble, turn the heat down so that the sauce cooks at the laziest of simmers, with just an intermittent bubble breaking through to the surface. Cook, uncovered, for 3 hours or more, stirring from time to time. While the sauce is cooking, you are likely to find that it begins to dry out and the fat separates from the meat. To keep it from sticking, add ½ cup of water whenever necessary. At the end, however, no water at all must be left and the fat must separate from the sauce. Stir to mix the fat into the sauce, taste and correct for salt.
- Step 5
Toss with cooked drained pasta, adding the tablespoon of butter, and serve with freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano on the side.
Private Notes
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Comments
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.
This was a great and helpful guide. Added a few bits more here, reduced a few things there and ended up with a great bolognese.
I have to laugh at the people who are complaining about it not being good. You're saying that you had something on your stove top for 3 hours and not once did you taste it? This is cooking not baking. You taste everything at every step along the way and make adjustments. It is the lazy cook that blames the recipe
I don't think I'm doing this right!! I followed the directions to Step 4 and have had it simmering for 5 hours so far and it still is watery and, infinitely worse, essentially flavorless! Did I buy the wrong tomatoes? Did I not cook the wine off or something? I am at a loss. How is there not more give in a 5-star recipe? Can anyone help?
Do you have to use whole nutmeg? Can you use ground nutmeg in a pinch?
Preparing this as written. Like so many NYT recipes, YMMV. This is more about technique rather than ingredients. The lesson here is low and slow. Allow the flavors to emerge through long cooking, then adjust to your taste at the end. Garlic? Why not. Red bell pepper? Adds sweetness. Marmite? An umami boost. And so on. Cook what you enjoy eating; eat what you enjoy cooking.