Traditional Italian Bolognese Beef Sauce (ragu’) +10M

Hi all! This recipe comes from my mom’s recipes box. When I cook Beef Bolognese (btw, we call it Ragu’in Italy) it’s like having her next to me. She teached me how to cook it and now I’m going to share it with you in a baby version appropriate for your baby and for the whole family!

In my freezer there are always some containers with homemade Ragu’ ready to be used…you cannot imagine how many times Ragu’ saved our meals.

You thaw it, you add it to some pasta and the magic is done!!

And if you like Bolognese sauce, you should taste my mom’s lasagne recipe….incredible!

I’m trying to convince her to cook the lasagne for BuonaPappa….I will keep you updated 🙂

Meanwhile, enjoy her Bolognese Sauce with some pasta, it’s simply delicious!!

The recipe is appropriate for babies starting from 10 months of age due to the tomato acidity. Also, if you are cooking for little ones, you can skip the salt and add it later for the adults.

The procedure is very simple.

Wash and chop the veggies in small pieces: celery, onion, carrots.

You can do it by hand or…way faster (I learned with time) throw big chunks in a food processor and blend for 15sec. Even considering that you need to rinse the food processor, this method saves you time 🙂

Drizzle 4 Tbsp Extra Virgin Olive oil in a big pan and turn the heat on to medium. Sautee’ them for 4/5 min stirring.

Add the ground beef and brown for 5 min. Break the ground meat with a wooden spoon in small pieces.

Add the fresh tomatoes chopped in pieces (I usually leave the peel and remove the seeds).

Adjust with salt, reduce to simmer and let the Bolognese sauce cook slowly for 2/3 hours.

Once the Bolognese sauce is nicely reduced you can divide it in portions and store it for many delicious recipes:

a simple pasta or lasagne or cannelloni or zucchini lasagne or stuffed zucchini!!!

The Bolognese sauce can be stored in an air tight container in the refrigerator for up to 4 days or in the freezer for up to 2 months.

Also, Bolognese sauce can be made in so many ways, using different kind of meat or adding vegetables or even making a vegetarian version.

You might want to check out these other recipes:

Italian Ragu Sauce
Ingredients
  • 6 lb fresh tomatoes (there is a typo in the video, it's not oz.)
  • 5 lb ground beef (there is a typo in the video, it's not oz.)
  • 2 carrots
  • 1 stick celery
  • 1 small onion
  • 2 Tbsp Olive Oil
  • 2 tsp salt optional if cooking for a baby

3 Comments

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  • Reply
    Jennifer
    November 10, 2016 at 4:19 pm

    Hello,

    I love watching your videos & wanted to make the homemade ragu sauce for my 10-month-old son, but the amount of ingredients listed seems very small compared to what I see in the video. Are those the correct measurements??

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      Reply
      Barbara Lamperti
      November 10, 2016 at 9:14 pm

      Hi Jennifer! thank you so much for watching BuonaPappa!! wow, I just noticed that in the video instead of writing lb I typed oz. that’s why the measurements looks strange compared to the image! It’s 6 pounds tomatoes and 5 pounds beef. I never noticed it before, sorry for the misunderstanding. Unfortunately I am not be able to fix the video, but I will for sure add a note in the post. Thank you so much for pointing it out!! let me know if your little one likes the ragu! ciao, b

      • Reply
        Jennifer Rodriguez
        November 12, 2016 at 6:38 pm

        Thank yoh so much, that helped a lot!! 🙂

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