Slow cooking this bolognese recipe really helps to infuse all the flavours of the tomatoes and the beef making the most delicious bolognese sauce with a full 2 portions of vegetables per serving.
Ingredients and Tools:
2kg Beef Mince £5.96
1kg Bacon £3.49
1kg Carrots 58p
1kg Onions 50p
1kg Mushrooms £1.40
3 Tins Chopped Tomatoes 84p
1 Bulb Garlic 16p
Tomato Puree 31p
Beef Stock Cubes 12p
Worcestershire Sauce 65p
Total = £14.01
Makes 27 servings = 52p per serving
Food purchased from Aldi
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Start by mincing the garlic bulb. I use a food processor to make this super quick and easy.
Then dice the onions, again I use the food processor but you can do it by hand, it just takes a little longer,
Fry them up in a big frying pan with high sides so you can fit everything in.
Once the onions and garlic are soft pop them in the slow cooker.
Fry the mince in the same pan - no need to make extra washing up.
Once that's started to brown add it to the slow cooker.
Then peel and grate the carrot. I got a food processor mostly for this job, I used to do it with a cheese grater and it took AGES.
Add three stock cubes.
And a tube of tomato puree.
Three tins of chopped tomatoes.
If you want to reduce the cost of this recipe you can add extra tins.
Then add a small bottle of Worcestershire sauce. You can make this bolognese recipe without the Worcestershire sauce but I highly recommend adding it as it brings a whole new dimension to the flavour of the recipe.
Set the slow cooker to low and leave it for the day or overnight.
Cut the bacon into little chunks and fry them.
Add the bacon bits to the bolognese mixture.
I've found the flavour of the bacon really shines if you fry it separately and add it into the mix at the end of the cooking time instead of slow cooking the bacon.
The same goes for the mushrooms, dice and fry them separately.
This not only helps to preserve the flavour but it also helps to fit this massive recipe into a large slow cooker. If you tried to cook all the ingredients at once in the slow cooker it would overflow and that can damage your slow cooker, not to mention make a right mess. Cooking the bacon and mushrooms separately means you can mix them with the bolognese after cooking so that you can remove some of the mixture if it's about to overflow.
Traditionally this recipe is eaten with spaghetti of course but I tend to serve it with smaller pastas as I find they make less mess and are easier to cook in a smaller pan.
And of course it needs to be served with a sprinkling of cheese!
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