Bolognese Sauce

I know I've blogged about Bolognese before but I want to share this latest iteration because John and I believe that I have finally perfected it! John is an afficianado of Bolognese so this is quite a feat for me. This sauce is heavenly served with your favorite fresh or dried pasta and some good crusty bread.

Fresh Bolognese Sauce:
1/2 or 2/3 pound of sweet Italian Sausage
1/2 pound ground beef (we used Chuck)
1/2 of a large onion, diced
3 large cloves of garlic, minced
2 cups of fresh wild mushrooms, sliced (we used shitake, baby bellas would work too)
1/2 teaspoon of dried crushed rosemary
1/2 teaspoon of dried thyme
1 teaspoon of dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon of crushed red pepper flakes
1 teaspoon of kosher salt and some black pepper
1/3 cup white wine
1 1/2 cups chicken stock
2 1/2 cups of jarred marinara or tomato sauce
1/4 cup of fresh parsley, chopped

Saute the onion in olive oil over medium heat for 2 minutes. Add the sausage (remove from casing) and ground beef and brown over medium high heat, breaking apart with a spoon while it cooks. (I skimmed off some of the residual oil with a spoon as the meet cooked down to avoid a super oily sauce.) When the meat has almost browned all over, add the mushrooms- cooking for 3-4 minutes. Then add the garlic, dried herbs, peppers and salt- cooking for another 2-3 minutes.

Add the white wine to deglaze the brown bits from the pan- cooking until the liquid it is almost completely evaporated. Next add the stock, cooking 2 minutes before adding the tomato sauce or marinara. Turn the heat down to med-low/low and simmer for at least 15 minutes until everything comes together to a rich looking sauce.

I like an even consistency to my bolognese, so I use an immersion blender to break it down at the very end. I pulse the blender to avoid pureeing it, the goal being to blend the mushroom and meat bits together into a cohesive sauce. Stir the fresh parsley in at the very end to give it a freshness of flavor.

I've tried a dozen bolognese recipes and I'm pretty sure this one is the keeper! The beef is rich (I've actually swapped this out for ground turkey which I thought was great for a lower fat option), the sweet pork sausage adds depth of flavor with the flavors of fennel seed, and the mushrooms add an earthiness and lightness to the sauce.

This sauce was the PERFECT match for our homemade potato gnocchi!