Zucchini & Mushroom Bolognese Sauce

If you visit me on a Sunday, 6 times out of 10 you will find me making this Bolognese sauce. What I love about this particular Bolognese sauce is there’s a good portion of vegetables and mushrooms to complement the otherwise very meaty sauce. This sauce has become a regular in the Fuss Free Cooking household after I have packed up most of my dinnerware and cookware during our move from Orange to Melbourne. We love the sauce so much that it has since incorporated in to our work day meal rotation.

I used to cook Bolognese sauce under an hour. After all it does not take a lot of time to cook mince. However, I’ve discovered that if you allow the Bolognese sauce to simmer for an hour on the stove over low heat, the sauce you’ll end up with is deeper red, thicker and richer sauce as compared to the sauce made in a shorter cooking time. Hence I usually make a large quantity of Bolognese sauce on Sunday and it will last us 4 to 6 meals between the two of us during the week.

Zucchini & Mushroom Bolognese Sauce

4-6 servings

Zucchini & Mushroom Bolognese Sauce

Ingredients

½ Tbsp cooking oil
1 brown onion, peeled & diced
3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
2 Tbsps of dried oregano
500g beef mince
1 red (or green) capsicum (bell pepper), deseeded & diced
300g zucchini, diced
400g sliced white button mushrooms
680g passata (tomato puree)
410g canned chopped tomato
Salt, sugar & black pepper to taste

Instructions

In a large sauce pan, add cooking oil. When the oil is hot, add brown onion and sauté until translucent.
Add garlic and dried oregano. Sauté until aromatic and add beef mince. Add 1 tsp of salt and generous amount of freshly milled black pepper.
When the beef mince is about 70% cooked, add capsicum and sauté to a minute.
Add zucchini, mushroom, passata and chopped tomato. Stir all the ingredients until well combined and cook over high heat until the mixture starts to bubble.
Turn the heat setting to low and simmer with a lid for an hour. Stir the mixture after 30 minutes to ensure the sauce does not stick to the pot. You will need to stir more regularly towards the last 15 to 20 minutes of the cooking time as the sauce will become quite thick then.
Season with salt, sugar and black pepper to taste.
The sauce will be sufficient for 400g – 500g pasta. Cook the pasta as per packet instructions. Serve the Bolognese sauce with cooked pasta and generous amount of parmesan, chopped parsley and more freshly milled black pepper. Enjoy!

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Whenever I prepare our meals for the week, I tend to feel good and be ready for the work days to come! So my dear friends, what type of meals do you like to prepare for the week?

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