Ally
Dear world, I have a public service announcement: make this slow cooker beef ragu bolognese immediately.  I’ve never been so in love with a humble pasta sauce: deep flavors with a thick and meaty texture that’s creamy and cheesy at the same time. This is easy enough for a weeknight meal, (it cooks itself, you know!) but fancy enough for a holiday family Sunday supper.  I served mine with some crusty garlic bread and a big green salad.  It was perfection. Oh, and just a few glasses of wine 😉
Taylor and I slurped up every last bit of our enormous bowls of this goodness. And then I served the extra pasta sauce over spaghetti squash later in the week? Equally as amazing. Â You can sub out the bolognese sauce in this recipe for the slow cooker beef ragu bolognese>No-Guilt Spaghetti Squash Bolognese
- 3 lb beef chuck roast, (pot roast)
- Salt and pepper
- 28 oz can who San Marzano style tomatoes
- 1 white onion, diced
- 8 cloves garlic, peeled
- 3 carrots, diced
- 1 tbsp salt
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 1 tbsp red pepper flakes
- 2 bay leaves
- 1 tbsp dried Italian seasoning
- 1 tbsp dried thyme
- 1-2 tbsp cornstarch, (for thickening)
- ½ cup grated parmesan cheese, plus more for topping
- 1 lb box fettuccine, or other long pasta
- Season a beef chuck roast generously with salt and pepper.
- Add a whole 28 ox can of San Marzano tomatoes to the bottom of a crockpot, and place the beef chuck on top.
- Cover the beef and tomatoes with the diced onion, garlic, carrots, salt, sugar, red pepper, bay leaves, Italian seasoning, and thyme. Stir to mix and coat the beef.
- Cover and cook on "low" for 8 hours, or on "high" for 4 hours.
- Remove the beef chuck carefully from the crockpot, and shred with two forks.
- While the beef is out of the crockpot, use an immersion blender to blend the remaining tomatoes, veggies, and seasoning in the crockpot to make a thick, creamy sauce. If you don't have an immersion blender, you could transfer the sauce to a standard blender in small batches and return it to the crockpot. Return the shredded beef to the sauce and stir to coat.
- The sauce is likely to be a little thinner than you want, (bolognese/ragu should stick to the pasta in a hearty way), so you need to thicken it. Add ½ cup of grated parmesan cheese and stir.
- Additionally, a cornstarch slurry will also thicken it further. To make a cornstarch slurry, combine 1 tbsp cornstarch with 1 cup of the ragu sauce in a separate bowl, and then stir it back into the crockpot sauce. Cover the sauce back up, and cook on "low" for 20-30 minutes to see if it is thick enough. I did this twice to reach my desired thickness.
- When the sauce is thick enough, taste for seasoning, and add more salt, sugar, or red pepper flakes to reach your desired flavor.
- Meanwhile, cook the fettuccine according to the package instructions.
- Serve a big bowl of pasta topped with several scoops of the beef ragu and top with parmesan cheese. Enjoy!
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