How to Make Pappardelle Bolognese
This recipe serves a crowd for sure, but you can halve it or just make half the amount of pasta and freeze leftover sauce for another time (that’s what I do). It’s a perfect winter entertaining recipe – a stick-to-your-ribs, flavor-packed, cozy pasta that is truly delicious.Â
- Yield: Serves 4 to 6 1x
Ingredients
Scale
- Olive Oil, as needed
- 5 slices pancetta, minced (can sub bacon)
- 1/2 cup dried porcini soaked, drained and then finely chopped
- 5 garlic cloves, grated or minced
- 1 small onion, diced
- 1 large carrot diced
- 1 celery stalk finely diced
- 4 anchovies, minced
- 1 pound ground pork
- 1 pound ground skirt steak (ask someone in your supermarket’s meat department to do this for you)
- Salt and pepper as needed
- 4 tablespoons tomato paste
- 2 cups red wine (drink the rest!)
- 2 cups beef or chicken stock
- 1 cup milk
- 28-oz. can crushed San Marzano tomatoes
- 2 rinds from a wedge of parmesan or pecorino Romano
- 2 pounds pasta, I used pappardelle here (or more, or less – depending on how many you want to serve)
- 8-ounce ball burrata cheese (optional)
Instructions
- Â In a large cast-iron pan or Dutch oven over medium heat, add a healthy glug (2 TBSP or so) of olive oil and then cook the pancetta, porcinis, onions, carrots, and celery until lightly brown. Takes about 20 minutes. Add the anchovies and cook a few minutes more.Â
- Add another couple of tablespoons olive oil to a second large skillet over medium heat (not too hot here). Brown the ground pork and ground skirt steak until all of the meat is evenly browed. Just put it in the pan and let it get nice and crusty brown on one side before you mess with it. That crust = flavor! Scrape the meat to remove any bits from the pan and brown all the way through; takes about 20 minutes. Add the tomato paste and cook for a few more minutes.
- To the pan with the bacon and veggies, add 1 cup of the red wine to deglaze. Now, transfer all of the contents of this pot to the pot with the meat. Add the rest of the wine and scrape up all the tasty bits on the bottom. Reduce the liquid by half (takes about 10 minutes). Add the stock, milk, crushed tomatoes, cheese rinds, and simmer very gently for 2 hours.
-  Remove the rinds; discard. Let the sauce cool a little before serving. To serve, cook the pasta according to package directions, reserving ½ cup of the pasta water. Toss the pasta with the sauce, adding the reserved cooking water to help everything marry nicely. (note: If you aren’t serving all of the sauce at once, I’d suggest adding the sauce to the pasta – not the other way around. Then you can save what’s left of the sauce after you’ve added what you need for the pasta). Finish with some extra Parmesan or Pecorino and serve on individual plates with generous pieces of creamy burrata nestled inside (that’s totally optional). I like to lightly salt and pepper the burrata, as well.