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Spaghetti Bolognese with Red Wine
You’d probably never guess it given how many pasta recipes I share, but spaghetti Bolognese with red wine is genuinely one of my all-time favourite meals. Rich, slow-cooked mince, silky tomato sauce, plenty of Parmesan, and a generous splash of Shiraz make this exactly the sort of dinner I start craving hours before I can actually eat it. Sometimes nothing else will do.
Red Wine Bolognese
Red wine bolognese is one of my ultimate comfort recipes – rich, hearty, and full of depth. I simmer beef mince with garlic, onion, tomatoes, herbs, and a good splash of red wine until the sauce is thick, glossy, and packed with flavour. It’s slow food at its best, perfect for lazy Sundays or making ahead for a midweek treat. Toss it through pasta, pile it over mash, or freeze leftovers for a future craving. It’s classic, cosy, and always worth the wait.
Ingredients
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1 brown onion, finely diced
- 4 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 tbsp tomato paste
- 500g pork and veal mince
- 185ml red wine
- 600ml passata
- 1 cup beef stock
- 1 Parmigiano Reggiano rind (see notes)
- 2 bay leaves and small sprig of thyme
- Maldon sea salt flakes and freshly cracked black pepper
Instructions
- Heat the oil in a large pot over low-medium heat. Saute the onion until soft, approximately 10 minutes.
- Add the garlic and tomato paste and cook for an additional 2-3 minutes, or until fragrant.
- Increase the heat to medium-high and add the pork and veal mince. Cook for 5-10 minutes, or until thoroughly cooked through and browned.
- Add a large pinch of sea salt flakes and pour in the red wine. Reduce the heat to low and simmer for about 10 minutes, or until the wine has reduced.
- Stir in the passata, beef stock, herbs, and the Parmigiano Reggiano rind.
- Bring to the boil over medium-high heat, then cover with a lid and reduce the heat to low. Simmer covered for 3 hours, or until the sauce has thickened and deepened in colour.
- Remove the Parmigiano Reggiano rind, taste, and season with salt and pepper before serving.
Notes
- This is a proper, slow-cooked bolognese. It takes time, but the result is a rich, deeply flavoured sauce that you simply can't rush.
- Pork and veal mince gives you a more delicate, nuanced flavour than beef mince alone. The pork adds fat and sweetness, while the veal keeps it tender. If you can't find it, a 50/50 mix of pork and beef mince works well.
- The Parmigiano Reggiano rind is a game-changer. It melts slowly into the sauce over the long cook, adding a deep, savoury richness that you can't quite put your finger on but absolutely notice. Save your rinds in the freezer whenever you finish a block.
- No sugar in this bolognese. Ever. A good quality, citric acid free passata is naturally sweet enough. Mutti is a brilliant brand to look for.
- A good quality red wine makes a difference here. Use something you'd actually drink. Nothing too tannic or too sweet. A Sangiovese or Montepulciano works beautifully.
- Reducing the wine fully before adding the passata is important. You want the alcohol to cook off completely so you're left with just the flavour and depth.
- Three hours is the minimum. If you've got the time, four hours on the lowest possible heat is even better.
- I use this heavy-based pot for bolognese. It distributes the heat evenly and prevents the sauce from catching on the bottom during the long, slow cook.
- Bolognese tastes significantly better the next day once the flavours have had time to develop. Make it ahead if you can.
- Leftovers can be stored in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 4 days.
- This bolognese freezes beautifully. Portion into freezer-safe containers and freeze for up to 3 months. Defrost in the fridge overnight and reheat gently on the stovetop, adding a splash of stock or water if needed to loosen the sauce.
Nutrition Information:
Yield:
4Serving Size:
1Amount Per Serving: Calories: 473Total Fat: 27gSaturated Fat: 8gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 16gCholesterol: 135mgSodium: 276mgCarbohydrates: 6gFiber: 1gSugar: 2gProtein: 41g
Please note, this nutrition information is to be used as a guide only. Nutrition information isn’t always accurate.
Serve this with
- Serve with my Simple Rocket and Parmesan Salad for a fresh, peppery contrast to the rich Bolognese. The lemony dressing helps cut through the slow-cooked beef and red wine sauce.
- Add my Garlic Bread for scooping up every last bit of sauce. The crisp, buttery bread works beautifully with the tomato, beef and herbs and makes the whole meal feel properly comforting.
- Pour a glass of South Australian Shiraz alongside. Its bold berry fruit and peppery spice are a natural match for the rich beef, tomato and red wine flavours in the Bolognese.
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When the Bolognese Craving Hits
The craving for this particular Bolognese hit me mid-afternoon, mid-email, and somewhere in the depths of a workday daze. One minute I was minding my own business, attempting to be productive, and the next spaghetti Bolognese had taken over every available corner of my brain. This wasn’t a vague thought about what I might have for dinner either. This was a full culinary yearning, and once I realised I hadn’t made a proper Bolognese since leaving Scotland, that was it. Dinner had been decided whether I’d planned for it or not.
Normally my Bolognese is a fairly straightforward affair. Good mince, plenty of time, and enough patience to let everything slowly become rich and lovely. This time I wanted it to feel a little more indulgent, so I used pork and veal mince rather than my usual beef. It gives the sauce this gorgeous richness and softness, while passata creates the silky tomato base I wanted. Then, because I’m living in South Australia and apparently have access to excellent wine everywhere I turn, in went a generous splash of Shiraz.
Once the sauce was gently bubbling away, the whole house started smelling incredible. That deep tomato, meat, garlic, and red wine smell worked its way through every room while I pottered around pretending I wasn’t checking the saucepan every fifteen minutes. Naturally, every check involved another spoonful for quality-control purposes. Sometimes the best dinners aren’t particularly clever. They just need good ingredients and enough time to become what they’re meant to be. This one needed a slow afternoon, a bottle of good red, and the patience not to eat half the sauce before the spaghetti was ready.
Plants, Pasta and Cooking for One
If you’ve been around here for a while, you’ll know I have a bit of a thing for plants. When I moved from Brisbane to Adelaide, I had to part with more than forty of them, which was considerably more emotional than I expected. You spend years keeping these ridiculous leafy things alive and suddenly handing them over feels like abandoning tiny green dependants. Thankfully, my collection is slowly rebuilding. The windowsills are filling up again, shelves are becoming crowded, and my home is gradually returning to the little indoor jungle I apparently require.
Living alone has taken a little more adjustment. I’ve spent so much of my adult life cooking for partners, friends, family, or whoever happened to be around that cooking purely for myself can still feel strangely unfamiliar. But I also really enjoy the freedom of it. Nobody else has opinions about dinner. Nobody’s picking out olives or objecting to too much garlic. I can decide at three in the afternoon that I desperately need spaghetti Bolognese and reorganise my entire evening around that craving without consulting another human being.
That said, this particular batch wasn’t destined to be eaten entirely alone. My boyfriend loves my cooking, and I absolutely love cooking for him, so he’s always a very willing recipient when I’ve made far too much food. Cooking has always been one of the ways I show affection, and feeding somebody who genuinely enjoys what I’ve made makes me ridiculously happy. A big bowl of spaghetti Bolognese, far too much Parmesan, and someone I like sitting beside me feels like a pretty excellent evening. I enjoy cooking for myself, but it’s lovely having someone around who appreciates being fed too. Especially when a recipe makes enough sauce to feed several people despite me supposedly cooking for one.
South Australian Shiraz and a Quiet Night In
One of the unexpected bonuses of dating my boyfriend is that he knows an extraordinary amount about wine, particularly South Australian wine. I like wine. He understands wine. He knows the regions, producers, varieties, vintages, and all the little details I mostly respond to by nodding thoughtfully before asking which one I should drink. It’s impressive, slightly intimidating, and fortunately for me, he’s taken it upon himself to provide a fairly thorough South Australian wine education while I’m living here.
That education is particularly useful when I’m cooking something like Bolognese. Adelaide is surrounded by some of Australia’s most celebrated wine regions, so it feels almost criminal to reach for something terrible when a recipe needs red wine. A good Shiraz works beautifully here, giving the sauce a deeper, richer flavour as it slowly reduces into the tomatoes and mince. And yes, before anyone says it, I absolutely subscribe to the idea that if I wouldn’t happily drink the wine, I’m not pouring it into my dinner. Thankfully, finding a drinkable Shiraz in South Australia isn’t exactly difficult.
Then comes my favourite part. Dinner served, generous bowls balanced on our laps, Parmesan everywhere, a glass of wine nearby, and some daft movie playing in the background. No restaurant booking, no complicated plans, and nowhere either of us needs to be. I’ve increasingly realised those are the evenings I enjoy most. Good food, good wine, good company, and the comfort of being at home. This Bolognese fits that kind of night perfectly. It takes a few hours to become properly rich and delicious, but most of that time asks absolutely nothing from you. Let it bubble, open the wine, find something ridiculous to watch, and enjoy the fact that sometimes the meal you’ve been obsessing over since three o’clock is every bit as good as you imagined.
Frequently asked questions
Why pork and veal mince rather than beef? Beef mince is perfectly fine but pork and veal gives you a more delicate, nuanced flavour. The pork adds fat and sweetness that keeps the sauce rich and unctuous over the long cook, while the veal keeps the texture tender. The result is a bolognese that tastes noticeably more refined than a straight beef version. A 50/50 mix of pork and beef works well if you can’t find pork and veal.
Do I need to add sugar? No. Sugar does not belong in bolognese. A good quality citric acid free passata is naturally sweet enough on its own, and the slow three-hour cook concentrates and deepens that sweetness without any help. If your sauce tastes sharp, the issue is the passata, not a missing teaspoon of sugar. Switch to a better brand and the problem goes away.
Can I make this ahead? Yes, and honestly you should. Bolognese tastes significantly better the next day once the flavours have had time to meld and deepen overnight. Make it the day before, refrigerate it, and reheat gently on the stovetop before serving. It also freezes beautifully for up to three months.
Ingredient breakdown
Olive oil
The fat the soffritto cooks in at the start, over low-medium heat for a full ten minutes so the onion has time to become properly soft and sweet before anything else goes in. Don’t rush this stage. A well-cooked soffritto is the foundation the rest of the sauce is built on.
Brown onion and garlic
The aromatic base of the bolognese, finely diced so they melt completely into the sauce over the long cook and become indistinguishable in the finished dish. The onion goes in first over low-medium heat for a proper ten-minute cook before the garlic and tomato paste follow. This slow, patient start is what gives the sauce its sweetness and depth.
Tomato paste
Goes in with the garlic and cooks for two to three minutes until fragrant and slightly darkened before the mince goes in. This step caramelises the natural sugars in the paste and removes the raw, tinny edge, which adds a concentrated richness to the finished sauce that you wouldn’t get from stirring it in with the liquid.
Pork and veal mince
Added after the soffritto is done and cooked over medium-high heat until thoroughly browned and any liquid has cooked off. The heat needs to be high enough to get proper colour on the mince rather than just grey, steamed meat, because that browning is where a significant portion of the flavour comes from. Break it up well as it cooks so there are no large clumps in the finished sauce.
Red wine
A proper pour of red wine goes in after the mince is browned and simmers for about ten minutes until fully reduced before the passata goes in. Use something you’d actually drink rather than a cheap cooking wine, because the flavour concentrates as it reduces and a harsh wine will make the sauce taste sharp. A Sangiovese or Montepulciano works beautifully. The alcohol needs to cook off completely before the passata goes in, which is why the reduction step matters.
Passata
Citric acid free, which is important in a sauce that simmers for three hours because a sharp passata will become sharper as it reduces rather than sweeter. Mutti is a reliably good brand. The passata forms the body of the sauce and reduces and concentrates over the long slow cook into something deeply rich and glossy that no quick tomato sauce can replicate.
Beef stock
Added with the passata and simmers down into the sauce over the three-hour cook, adding a savoury depth and body that passata alone doesn’t provide. It also gives the sauce enough liquid to simmer low and slow without catching on the bottom of the pot.
Parmigiano Reggiano rind
The ingredient that separates a genuinely great bolognese from a very good one. The rind melts slowly into the sauce over the long cook, releasing a deep, savoury richness that you can’t quite identify by name but would absolutely notice if it wasn’t there. Save your Parmigiano Reggiano rinds in the freezer every time you finish a block because they are too valuable to throw away. Fish the rind out before serving.
Bay leaves and thyme
Two bay leaves and a small sprig of thyme simmer in the sauce for the full three hours and come out before serving. They add a quiet herbal background note that runs through the whole sauce and gives it a complexity that a pure meat and tomato sauce wouldn’t have.
Maldon sea salt flakes and black pepper
Season at two points: a large pinch goes in with the red wine before the long simmer, and then taste and adjust again at the very end after the rind comes out. The sauce concentrates significantly over three hours so taste carefully before adding more salt at the end.
