Freezer Friendly: Slow Cooker Spaghetti Bolognese

Freezer Friendly: Slow Cooker Spaghetti Bolognese

Freezer Friendly: Slow Cooker Spaghetti Bolognese

If your freezer is ready for you to fill with delicious food, this is a fantastic batch cooking freezer friendly recipe that’s just perfect for making ahead. The benefits of batch cooking include saving money, wasting less food and spending more time in the evenings with your family. This Slow Cooker Spaghetti Bolognese will make Italian Mamas proud. It’s rich, luscious and the meat is so tender it melts in your mouth. This way, you can always have a meal waiting for you at the end of the day. It’s a great way to make weeknight cooking manageable!

This Slow Cooker Spaghetti Bolognese recipe is a double batch and makes enough for 8 generous servings.

Ingredients

• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 5 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 onions, diced
• 900g minced beef
• 240ml red wine
• 4 x tins of chopped tomato
• 4 tbsp tomato puree
• 3 beef stock cubes , crushed
• 2 tsp Worcestershire Sauce
• 1 tsp Marmite
• 3 tsp dried oregano
• 2 tsp dried thyme leaves
• 3 dried bay leaves
• 2 tsp red pepper flakes (optional)
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• 250g mushrooms, chopped

Pasta

• 230g spaghetti , dried

Method

Heat 1 tbsp olive oil in a large pan over medium heat. Add garlic, mushrooms and onion, and cook until fragrant – around 8 minutes. Transfer to the slow cooker.

Heat 1 tbsp oil in the same pan and increase heat to high. Add beef and cook until browned. Cook in 2 batches if your pan is not large enough. Transfer to the slow cooker.

Return pan to the stove, turn the heat down to medium and add red wine. Bring to simmer and stir gently so that all of the flavour from the pan mixes with the wine, then pour the mixture into the slow cooker. Add remaining ingredients to the slow cooker. Cook on Low for around 6 hours.

Pasta

Bring a large pan of water to the boil and cook the spaghetti until just slightly firm. Remove 1 mug of the water from the pan, then drain the pasta.

Return the pasta to the pan and add around 700ml of Bolognese Sauce, plus 120ml of reserved pasta water. Toss gently over medium high heat for 2 minutes, until the Sauce has thickened and coats the spaghetti.

Serve immediately with a sprinkle of fresh basil leaves and freshly grated Parmesan.

 

Freezing Tips

Cool items to room temperature. To avoid contamination, don’t leave food out for more than 2 hours.

Consider dividing into smaller portion sized containers in case you’ll be feeding less people.

For extra ease you can use containers that can go from freezer to oven. I like the foil containers with covers. Place the containers in plastic bags and label and date before freezing.

 

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