How Long To Cook The Pasta For In Instant Pot
When using the Instant Pot or pressure cooker, it usually takes a quarter of the cooking time specified on the pasta packet/box. If it specifies cook pasta in boiling water for 10 minutes, I would cook it for 2.5 minutes . You will see that the pasta is still a bit undercooked but thats because itll cook more when you simmer the sauce.
The sauce is likely to be a bit watery after you open the Instant Pot. You will end up simmering it a bit more after the pressure cook to thicken the sauce to your liking. This can be done by putting the Instant Pot on saute mode. This extra simmering for 3-4 minutes will also cook your pasta even more to your desired texture.
What About The Pasta
My Easy Ragu Sauce is good over any kind of pasta youve got on hand spaghetti, fettucine, or even macaroni. It would also be a great sauce to use if youre making lasagna.
However, my new favorite way to serve Easy Ragu Sauce is over a plate of pre-made cheese ravioli. You can find some ready to go in the refrigerated section of most supermarkets. Frozen raviolis will work too. I like to keep a couple of bags in the freezer for dinnertime emergencies.
Just pop the raviolis into boiling water, cook, drain, and then top with a generous helping of Easy Ragu Sauce. In about thirty minutes, from start to finish, youll have a delicious dinner that tastes like Nonna spent all day in the kitchen!
Ready to give my Easy Ragu Sauce a try? Heres the recipe.
- 1 medium yellow onion, peeled and chopped into medium-sized chunks
- 12 T olive oil
- ½ cup chopped fresh parsley, divided
- 2 t. minced garlic
- 2 t. dried Italian seasoning
- 1 lb ground meat beef, pork, or a mixture of the two
- 1 t. salt
- 1 14.5 oz can diced tomatoes
- 1 6oz can tomato paste
- ¾ cup red wine
How To Store Leftover Beef Ragu
Like most stews or slow cooked sauces, they taste even better the next day because the flavours have had a long time to develop.
You can store leftovers in the fridge for up to 3-4 days. You may need to loosen it by adding a little water or stock when reheating and make sure its piping hot all the way through before serving.
You can also freeze this beef ragu, it freezes perfectly and its a great way for prepping ahead.
Just freeze in suitable containers then thaw completely before reheating.
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Doctored Up Spaghetti Sauce
Doctored up Spaghetti Sauce is something that I make almost every single week! It starts with any ol jar of store-bought spaghetti sauce and turns it into a hearty meat sauce and can be used in so many different recipes.
Everyone can admit that a red sauce is always better after it sits for a couple days. Using a jar of sauce just gives the meat sauce that simmered-all-day taste.
Our Simple Homemade Beef Rag Recipe Is Pure Weeknight Comfort
When does a pound and a half of ground meat become a transcendent meal? When its cooked with herbs and plenty of garlic, then given a glorious umami boost from canned tomatoes and simmered until its positively dripping with flavor. Spoon that glorious mixture over your favorite pasta and youve got a dinner thats both simple and simply the best. Working with just pantry and freezer staples, we created an easy ragù recipe thatll rescue dreary weeknights and hurried dinner timesits so good, it basically forces you to stop and take notice! So, on a day that really needs dinner timewhether it feels like theres time or notwhip up this quick ragù recipe and gather the crew. This recipe is an invitation to sit down and chat and eat and enjoy together, even for just a few minutes.
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Takeaways For Our Homemade Sauce
If we want to win over folks who love that commercial style pasta sauce flavor, we need a homemade sauce with:
In general, making an appealing sauce for fans of store-bought Ragu is going to be less about oregano or specific spices, and more about duplicating the thickness and the round, mildly sweet flavor of a commercial sauce.
But, keeping in mind Matthews wifes preferences, I did keep this particular pasta sauce oregano-free and fairly low in basil. As with all canning recipes you can swap out dry herbs and spices to your hearts content, with absolutely no effect on safety.
How To Thicken Beef Ragu
You may have made beef ragu in the past and ended up disappointed that it turned out a little more watery or thin than what you find in your favorite local restaurant.
So whats the secret for how to thicken beef ragu?
Well, its not what you see all over the internet.
In fact, its much easier.
To thicken beef ragu, just turn your pot down to a simmer after it has begun to bubble and allow it to continue to simmer for 30 minutes with the lid off so it can release the steam.
Thats literally it. Just simmer and it will reduce and thicken completely on its own.
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Top Tips For Making The Very Best Beef Ragu
- Dont rush the soffritto or you wont get the real depth of flavour.
- Make sure to use 50/50 ground beef and pork.
- Use high-quality passata as cheaper brands can be very acidic.
- Use a red wine thats good enough to drink and never use cooking wine.
- Try to use the highest quality beef stockor broth you can find if not homemade. This sauce is super simple so high-quality ingredients are important.
- If serving the traditional way with tagliatelle pasta then boil the pasta then add it straight into the ragu and toss to coat before serving.
Tips For Making Beef Ragu
Alrighty, there you have it a hearty, easy weeknight dinner idea that the whole family will love! Make sure to check out some more incredible dinner ideas after the recipe!!
To see all of our family dinner recipes, head here! These are a few of our favorites
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How To Make Ragu According To Three Real Italian Nonnas
Long before ragù was a ubiquitous brand of spaghetti sauce in a jar, it was and is the basis for untold volumes of Italian goodness, from tagliatelle al ragù to lasagna to gnocchi to supplì, deep-fried rice balls stuffed with meat sauce whose mere existence is perhaps proof that a higher power actually exists.
In Italy, a good pasta with ragù is the go-to meal in home kitchens and trattorias. It is as essential as an asthmatics inhaler or a reformed smokers vape pen: there are always the makings for it close at hand, a pot of it already bubbling on the stove on Sunday morning, or a mason jar of it being pulled from the freezer.
It gets sent back to college with students going home after a long weekend, and it accompanies families in the bag of groceries toted on a beach vacation. No ragù? No party.
Even if youve long-ago abandoned the jars of store-bought sauce in favor of a DIY concoction, chances are your attempts at ragù are a pathetic stab in the heart of Italian tradition and an offense to the sensibilities of nonnas everywhere, who would find your pasta sauce at best insipid, at worst a cruel corruption of all that is pure and good about ragù.
Our health-conscious ways are mostly whats standing between us and a good ragù, but, as all Italian mothers and grandmothers know, a little fat and cholesterol never killed anyone. So we asked three nonnas, all of whom have been making ragù for decades, to show us how its done.
Why Make The Recipe
This is an ideal recipe for busy weeknights where you want something a little special but dont have the energy for a traditional, slow-cooked ragu. This ragu recipe marries the umami flavours of garlic and meat, sour acidity of the tomatoes, sweetness of the onions and carrots and the butter/olive oil helping to bring everything together. This is a magic, saucy, melt-in-your mouth pasta.
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Easy Homemade Ragu Sauce
My husband grew up on great sauce like his moms so when I came into the picture it was imperative that I learned how to make a good sauce. I learned this early on when we were dating and his mom went away for the weekend so I made him dinner and like a crazy person decided to make pasta.
I know why would an English chick try and make pasta for the son of a Sicilian mother? Must have hit my head!
Anyhoo I did and just as you might expect he ate it but was not shy to point out that if we were to get married he could not eat jarred sauce for eternity. Yes I used jarred sauce.. the horror! Now before everyone gets all mad and emotional about this we were dating for quite a while at this point. And yes he could make it himself. But he is more of a BBQ kind of guy and came from a traditional household so I understood.
That said, because of this dinner gone wrong episode, I learned to make awesome homemade Ragù from an awesome lady who is from Siciliy. The land of amazing Italian food.
So now that you have the story of how I learned to make this amazing sauce its time for me to share the process with you.
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Real Talk: How Close Is This To Ragu
Despite hours of simmering, I wasnt able to fully duplicate that long-cooked, slightly metallic tomato paste flavor you get with Ragu. Doubling or even tripling the tomato paste would get the sauce closer, if thats important to you. But then at a certain point, you should just buy Ragu, know what I mean?
So, this is not a full-on copycat recipe. However, I did manage to create a thick, slightly sweet sauce with very little noticeable acidity that plays in the same category as a commercial pasta sauce. After fiddling and simmering and more fiddling and more simmering, I A/B tested the results of this sauce and the store bought Ragu.
To my palette, the homemade sauce is fresher, slightly less viscous , and has a bit more texture than Ragu. My kids, aged 13 and 6, both declared that they preferred the homemade sauce. They praised the texture as better than Ragu and liked the sweetness of the sauce.
I think that if you, your kids, or a family member prefer a mild, thick, store bought sauce, this is a great homemade alternative and possibly a way to start transitioning to more homemade options.
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How To Make Il Soffritto
Finely chop equal amounts of carrot, white onion and celery. To make Italian beef ragu, I use 1 carrot, 1 celery stick and 1 white onion.
Saute the chopped veggies in a large pan with a little olive oil. The key is to saute the veg slowly on a low/medium heat so they soften and release all the delicious flavours without browning or burning
Once the vegetables are soft add the ground beef and pork to the pan and brown then add the red wine and continue to cook until the wine has reduced by half.
Once the wine has reduced add the tomato passata/pureed tomatoes and half of the beef stock. Stir the sauce and let it simmer on a low heat for 2 and a half hours topping up the rest of the stock as it reduces.
Tip: Remeber to check on the ragu every now and then to stir it and add extra stock or water if needed.
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Tip: Does Your Family Like Their Sauce Spicy Add A Tsp Of Chili Flakes While The Sauce Is Simmering
So there you have itnow you will have sauce for a few meals. Making this on a weekend is the best idea because it takes a bit to make as you can see but once it is done you have sauce ready to go anytime for a quick weeknight meal. Thaw in the fridge the night before or warm up on law in a medium covered pot while the pasta is cooking!
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The Difference Between Ragu And Bolognese
Ragu depending on where you are in the world is a meat-based sauce usually consisting of finely chopped vegetables, ground meat and cooked in a liquid such as wine, tomatoes or stock.
There are hundreds of different types of ragu all containing different meats or vegetables like our Venetian Duck Ragu and our Sausage Ragu which is super easy!
Bolognese on the other hand actually means something originating from Bologna, Emilia Romagna and their classic ragu alla bolognese has been a little lost in translation over the years.
Its very similar to this one although is often made with white wine and sometimes milk which is thought to tenderise the meat.
Its also traditionally served with tagliatelle pasta and never spaghetti which is why youll hear Italians say that Spaghetti Bolognese doesnt exist.
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When You Cant Go Out
In previous years, the solution to this problem was simple. Wed just go out to dinner more often. But since most restaurants near me are closed right now, thats not really possible. And no matter how much I try to talk them out of it, my family still wants dinner every night!
I really do love to cook. If youve been following this blog for any amount of time, you probably figured that out. But theres a difference between pouring my creative energy into preparing a special meal every now and then and having to facing the five oclock dinner conundrum every single night.
We actually do order in twice a week Id never meet my deadline otherwise. But right now I am still faced with a lot more basic, dinnertime cooking than is usually the case. Also, before all this, at least half my cooking was for me alone. If I felt like cooking, I did. If I felt like having popcorn for dinner, that worked too.
Now there are three people to feed and theyre not going anywhere. I know Im not the only one who is getting a little tired of trying to come up with three meals a day, every day. This is even more of a challenge if youre trying to limit trips to the store, or your market isnt as well-stocked as it used to be.
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Cornstarch In Spaghetti Sauce
Weve seen a lot of spaghetti sauce and stew recipes recommending a slurry of cornstarch and water to thicken the sauce or stew, but we quite honestly disagree.
Cornstarch may not have a bold flavor, but it does have one and on top of that, it most certainly adds a bit of texture to a sauce from that gummy paste. Any red sauce should be simmered to thicken and never have a flour roux or cornstarch slurry to thicken it.
To make this beef ragu, it is so incredibly simple. Lets break it down:
See?! Anyone can make this dish!
Ragu Pasta Sauce Recipes: Easy Baked Spaghetti
Now that I have a family of my own, Ive always tried to cook dishes that feel like home. Fortunately, my daughter and husband love spaghetti just as much as I do. Ive never been able to replicate the taste of moms spaghetti sauce but I sure have come close a few times. When RAGU asked me to try out their NEW RAGU Homestyle Pasta Sauce, how could I refuse? They assured me that RAGU Homestyle is their boldest flavor yet because they peel, chop and simmer their ingredients just like my mom did. They also use a special blend of herbs to layer and build the flavor. Did they steal moms recipe? Ha! Just kidding. With no artificial flavors, no artificial colors and no high fructose corn syrup, its like coming home from school again.
To try out the new RAGU Homestyle Pasta Sauce, I decided to make Baked Spaghetti instead of my usual spaghetti. If youve never made baked spaghetti before, youre in for a treat. Theres something about baking spaghetti in the oven that brings out all the delicious flavors. The best part? As long as you use thin spaghetti, theres no need to cook the noodles ahead of time. Thats right> You get to use uncooked noodles in this recipe! Lets get started.
Ingredients
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