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This Slow Cooker Bolognese recipe is so easy, with NO BROWNING browning necessary! Just leave it to cook all day and come home to a thick, rich beef ragu. Perfect to top spaghetti or use in lasagne.
Is there a more classic midweek dinner than Spag Bol?! 🍝
I’ve taken this family favourite dish and reinvented it to be cooked while you’re busy all day, totally hands off – no faffing. Meet my Slow Cooker Bolognese.
Yes, I mean it when I say we don’t have to fry off the mince to brown it beforehand, which means this is a true throw-it-all-in slow cooker recipe – AKA a trusty ‘dump bag’ dinner.
I love sharing my newly discovered slow cooker hacks with you, and this is the ULTIMATE time-saving method of making this much-loved dish.
I have made sure it’s packed with rich flavour and the long, slow cooking just enhances the depth of deliciousness. Did I mention how easy it is too?!
I hope you love it as much as we do. ❤️
Why you’ll love this Slow Cooker Bolognese recipe
⭐️ Soft and tender beef
⭐️ Rich and delicious sauce
⭐️ Perfect for batch cooking and freezing
How we came up with this recipe
It can sometimes be tricky to get the flavours right with slow cooker recipes, especially if we’re not browning the meat we’re using beforehand. And that’s even truer with beef.
And so I knew if we were going to get spaghetti bolognese made in a slow cooker, it would have to be perfectly fine-tuned. The adapted version would also have to be worth cooking it differently for.
I am DELIGHTED to say that, after lots of testing, this bolognese recipe ticks all of the boxes…
✅ It’s rich in flavour thanks to a few extra ingredients that you might normally leave out (red wine, Worcestershire sauce, extra quantities of herbs and tomatoes, for example).
✅ It’s also SO easy. Yes we really do just add all of the ingredients to the slow cooker, switch on and go. We don’t need to brown the mince at all. Which means preparing dinner takes just a few minutes, and the outcome is a rich, thick sauce that will go down with the whole family.
✅ It has a lovely consistency that is very ragu-like. If you give the mince a quick chop up before you add it into the pan, it won’t go into clumps at all.
✅ You can then serve with spaghetti (make this separately as you’re about to eat), or it can even be used as a base for a lasagne or on top of a jacket potato.
More slow cooker beef mince recipes
⭐️ Slow Cooker Chilli Con Carne ⭐️
⭐️ Homemade Doner Kebab ⭐️
⭐️ Slow Cooker Beef Enchiladas ⭐️
Ingredients
- Beef mince – I like to use a 5% beef fat mince as it avoids excess fattiness in the sauce (as none will be cooking off). Any beef mince will work fine though
- Tinned tomatoes
- Onion, celery and carrots – I use frozen Soffrito mix (onions, celery and carrots chopped into small cubes). Or you can prepare from scratch (see notes)
- Garlic – Fresh or jarred/frozen is OK
- Tomato pureé
- Red wine
- Beef stock cubes
- Dried oregano
- Bay leaves – Fresh or dried is fine (remove before serving)
- Salt and freshly ground black pepper
- Worcestershire sauce
- Fresh basil
How to make Spaghetti Bolognese in a slow cooker
- Put all of the slow cook ingredients into the slow cooker. Cook on HIGH for 6 hours or LOW for 8 hours.
- Add the Worcestershire sauce and fresh basil before serving.
Hint: If you want to serve this with spaghetti, boil the spaghetti for 2-3 minutes less than the usual cooking time. Drain and add to the bolognese sauce, with a splash or two of reserved cooking water. Stir well and allow the pasta to absorb the sauce a little and soften.
Leftovers
In the fridge You can keep this recipe in the fridge for 3 days. Reheat fully by before serving.
In the freezer Yes, you can freeze any leftovers. Defrost and reheat thoroughly when you want to enjoy them.
Alternatively, you can freeze all of the ingredients together in a bag raw as a ‘dump’ meal and then cook.
Top tips
Prep the night before
You can save yourself even more time in the morning for this recipe and prepare the ingredients for your slow cooker THE EVENING BEFORE!
Simply throw everything for the initial cook into the slow cooker, pop the lid on, then store it in the fridge overnight. In the morning, put it into the slow cooker and don’t forget to switch ‘on’.
Hack: Frozen mixed vegetables base
You can replace the individual carrots, celery and onion ingredients for a frozen bag of ‘soffritto’, which comes already pre-chopped and all together in one bag. (I love this cheat for lots of recipes!) It might be called ‘vegetable base mix’ or something similar in some supermarkets.
FAQs
Let me know how you got on and what you thought of these recipes. Please rate the recipe using the ⭐️ below.
Also I’d LOVE to see your cooking creations. If you’d like to share yours with me, you can tag me on Instagram (@tamingtwins).
Slow Cooker Bolognese {No Browning Recipe!}
Ingredients
For the Slow Cook:
- 500 g Beef mince
- 800 g Tinned tomatoes, (usually made up of 400g tins)
- 3 Sticks Celery, Chopped finely
- 3 Carrots, Peeled and chopped finely
- 1 Onion, Peeled and chopped finely
- 6 Cloves of garlic, Peeled and crushed
- 75 g Tomato pureé
- 125 ml Red wine
- 2 Beef stock cubes, undiluted, crumbled
- 2 tsp Dried oregano
- 3 Bay leaves
- Salt and freshly ground black pepper
To Serve:
- 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce, or Henderson's Relish
- 15 g Fresh basil, Finely chopped
Instructions
- Put all of the slow cook ingredients into the slow cooker and cook for 6 hours on HIGH or 8 hours on LOW.
- Add the Worcestershire sauce and fresh basil.
Optional:
- If you want to serve with spaghetti, boil the spaghetti for 2-3 minutes less than the usual cooking time. Drain and add to the bolognese sauce, with a splash or two of reserved cooking water. Stir well and allow the pasta to absorb the sauce a little and soften.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Absolutely delicious, 💕
Do you need to alter the liquid ratio of leaving out the wine? I don’t want to add any
Bloody lovely
Another winner! Even my ‘meat n two veg’ husband had seconds!!
I just love a one pot meal and this was delicious!
We make this weekly, it’s a real hit!
I do brown my mince because I prefer it that way but even adding that step it’s still super quick!
can you leave the wine out of serving to baby or use a red wine stock pot ?
Followed the instructions as per above (cooked meat before, not raw). Tested after 5 hours on low. Onions & carrots still hard. Turned up to medium and 9 hours later still not soft, onion still crunchy. Won’t be doing again. Just as well I wasn’t depending on it for an evening meal otherwise I would have been starving hungry. I realise all other comments and ratings are five star sorry for the three stars
Sorry it didn’t work for you Simon, slow cookers can vary a lot and how small you’ve cut the vegetables etc etc. If that ever happens again with a recipe and you need it to be ready you could obviously transfer it to a pan and boil it hard for 15 – 30 minutes to get the veg cooked through.
Thank you. I am just starting cooking
The best tasting bolognese!
We love this in our house hold and it reheats / freezes well.
Thank you!
Added some frozen mixed peppers and added just the right amount of kick for me. Great recipe and instructions.
First time making this. It was so simple to make and so good to have dinner ready as we walked in the door. Really tasty, my 9 year old went for seconds and requested we have it every week.