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Instant Pot Bolognese Sauce Recipe

This Instant Pot Bolognese Sauce is deliciously rich in flavor, yet is much quicker and easier than the stovetop method. Pour this Instant Pot Bolognese Sauce over pasta, rice, or potatoes for a dish the entire family will love.

instant pot bolognese sauce, best bolognese sauce, bolognese pasta

Instant Pot Bolognese Sauce

Confession: up until recently, I owned 3 rice cookers and 4 crock pots.
Disclaimer: two of the rice cookers were unwittingly “inherited” and two of the crock pots were gifts.

I’m an impulsive throw-away-er who’s always getting rid of All the Stuff. The fam knows that any belongings left laying around too long are privy to being donated.

However, the aforementioned excess appliances managed to escape my notice while they rested in the basement storage. After my spring cleaning frenzy, we’re down to the essential appliances. Essential = Instant Pot. It’s earned a permanent space in the kitchen.

This Instant Pot brown rice and Instant Pot steel cut oatmeal have been total game changers. Now, this Instant Pot Bolognese Sauce is my favorite way to do bolognese, period.

I used to stand over the stove, stirring a slowly simmering bolognese sauce for hours until it reached perfection. While that’s the classic road, this Instant Pot Bolognese has majorly cut down on cook time and tastes awesome….

instant pot bolognese sauce, best bolognese sauce, bolognese pasta

Simple, Real Ingredients

  • We love a mix of lean ground beef and ground pork sausage; it creates the best flavors (bolognese is a classic Italian ragú using beef or pork, which creates rich flavors.)
  • Plenty of chopped onion and garlic for wonderful aromatics
  • Diced celery and carrots for plenty of flavor and a veggie boost
  • Fire roasted tomatoes and tomato paste; the combo provides perfect balance
  • Beef broth and  dry red wine; it’s the mixture of these liquids that give this bolognese its richness in flavor
  • Bay leaves, a bit of sugar, and fresh parmesan for amazing yum. Freshly torn basil is a definite!

Don’t forget your favorite pasta cooked to al dente, as the perfect vehicle for serving this amazing bolognese. For a gluten free option, use gluten-free pasta, rice, or potatoes. All are seriously delicious!

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Tips to extraordinary Instant Pot Bolognese?

  • Sauté the aromatics and veggies in the Instant Pot first, which gets all that fabulous flavor out. It’s my favorite thing about the IP – you can sauté right in the same pot as you’ll be pressure cooking in.
  • Include all the juices from your cans of fire-roasted tomatoes. All that goodness goes to delicious use.
  • Use a dry red wine you really enjoy and that you’d drink alongside the dish. You’ll want a decent bottle of wine, which is the rule of thumb when cooking with wine…use one you would like to drink with the dish.
  • This Instant Pot bolognese sauce can be made ahead. Pressure cook it earlier that day, let it release naturally so you don’t have to fuss with it, and have it set to automatically enter warm setting when done. You’ll have a hot meal ready to go by dinner time.

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Pasta with Bolongnese Sauce

Instant Pot Bolognese Sauce Recipe

5 from 1 vote
This Instant Pot Bolognese Sauce is deliciously rich in flavor, yet is much quicker and easier than the stovetop method. Pour this Instant Pot Bolognese Sauce over pasta, rice, or potatoes for a dish the entire family will love.
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cook Time: 10 minutes
Total Time: 30 minutes
Servings: 10 cups
Author: Amy Dong

Ingredients  

  • 3 TB butter
  • 1 medium onion, chopped
  • 6 cloves garlic, minced
  • 2 celery stalks, finely diced
  • 2 large carrots, peeled and finely diced
  • 2 tsp kosher salt, not fine/table salt
  • ½ tsp freshly ground black pepper
  • 1 TB dried oregano
  • 1 lb lean ground beef
  • 1 lb ground pork sausage
  • 2 cans fire-roasted tomatoes , 14 oz, with juices
  • ½ cup regular beef broth
  • ½ cup good dry red wine
  • ¼ cup tomato paste
  • 2 tsp sugar
  • 2 bay leaves
  • Freshly grated parmesan cheese and freshly torn basil for serving
  • Other: pasta cooked to al dente for serving*

Instructions

  • Set Instant Pot to Sauté setting. Heat butter until sizzling; add onion, garlic, celery, carrot, salt, pepper, and oregano. Stir for 5 min. Add ground beef and ground sausage, stirring and breaking up the meat as you cook. Cook 10 min or just until no longer pink.
  • Add fire roasted tomatoes and their juices, beef broth, red wine, tomato paste, sugar, and bay leaves. Stir well to combine. Seal lid of Instant Pot. Press Cancel to reset the pot, and set to Pressure Cook for 10 minutes on high pressure.
  • If serving immediately, carefully do Quick Release once the timer goes off. If not serving right away, allow Instant Pot to do its own Natural Release and elect “keep warm” (up to 6-7 hours) until ready to serve.
  • Taste finished bolognese sauce and add kosher salt or black pepper if needed. Pour sauce over individual bowls of cooked pasta, rice, or potatoes. Top generously with freshly grated parmesan cheese and freshly torn basil.

Notes

*Drain cooked pasta, but do not rinse. You don’t want to rinse away all the starch, which helps sauce to bind to pasta. Be sure to toss cooked pasta with some olive oil to prevent sticking, if there will be more than a couple of minutes before pouring Bolognese sauce over it.
You can use all beef or all pork sausage, but we’ve found a mixture of both creates the best results. Ground turkey can also work. Finished sauce can be kept airtight in freezer up to 2 weeks.
If you enjoyed this recipe, please come back and give it a comment & rating on the blog. We’d love to hear from you.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 318kcal | Carbohydrates: 9g | Protein: 17g | Fat: 22g | Saturated Fat: 9g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 2g | Monounsaturated Fat: 9g | Trans Fat: 1g | Cholesterol: 73mg | Sodium: 1044mg | Potassium: 408mg | Fiber: 2g | Sugar: 5g | Vitamin A: 2620IU | Vitamin C: 5mg | Calcium: 60mg | Iron: 2mg
Course: Dinner, Main
Cuisine: Italian
Method: pressure cooker

More Instant Pot Recipes to love:

Instant Pot Steel Cut Oatmeal

Bowl of oatmeal with Strawberry and Blueberry

Instant Pot Baby Potatoes Recipe

Bowl of Instant Pot Baby Potatoes

Instant Pot Turkey Breast with Gravy

Turkey Breast with Sauce

Instant Pot Parmesan Lemon Risotto

Bowl of Risotto with Chopped Chives and Sliced Lemon

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35 comments

    • Nati

    Such an awesome recipe! We are Italian food lovers at home and I’ll be for sure trying your bolognese sauce! thank you!

    • Chris T

    SeEms like everyone is loving their instant pot. I should have mine now. Really wanna try recipes like these.

    • Alexandra Torrijos

    is it safe to use the wine for a kid-friendly recipe? or should I do it without that ingredient?

      • chewoutloud

      Alexandra, the alcohol content gets cooked off/away during the high temps of cooking. You’ll just be left with the richness of flavor and not the alcohol. If you’re still concerned, feel free to sub with extra broth (the flavor will be altered a bit.) Happy cooking!

    • Lissette Fernandez

    And I’m over here with no Instant Pot. I swear it seems like everyone has one except for me.

    • dishappyhome

    We love our Instant Pot too! Will have to try this recipe, looks delicious and I love this sauce!

    • duffelbagspouse

    I love crockpot meals for their ability to free up prep time and the flavors really get a chance to meld.

    • Preet

    One of my favourite recipes from now on! So easy and quick! I’m not a cooking enthusiast so anything easy quick and tasty is my moto hehe

      • chewoutloud

      So glad you enjoyed this dish, Preet!

    • Mudpie Fridays

    Wow that looks so delicious! I could eat the whole thing by myself lol will make this during the weekend and see how the kids enjoy it

    • Alexandra Cook

    Oh my goodness, these ingredients sound perfect together! This is going on our meal plan for this week. My family will love this!

    • Amy Smith

    THat looks delicious and easy to make!

    • Nina Cochingco

    I always hear about instant pot recipe, we don’t have any in our house. I think I should ask mom to buy one.

    • Kalyan Panja

    Indeed this instant pot sauce prepared with the minimum number of easily available ingredients looks simple and delicious.

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