Dinner Tonight: Ridiculously fast ragu

A hearty meat sauce usually requires hours of simmering. This one is ready in 30 minutes.

Really good ragu, ridiculously fast

Jack Bishop Author, editor, and avid home cook

I love Bolognese, the beloved ragu from Emilia-Romagna. I actually developed the test kitchen’s first recipe for this Italian classic more than 25 years ago. If you have all day, make my version. Your house will smell wonderful and you will be rewarded with a refined take on this comforting dish.

Or, you could follow the lead of my colleague Alli Berkey and make her satisfying weeknight ragu that builds flavor in record time. Her biggest insight: Use ground lamb, which has so much personality. It also doesn’t require long cooking, like ground beef does, in order to become tender. And why not cook the aromatics—onion, carrot, garlic, ground fennel, and dried oregano—along with the meat?

Featured Recipe

Lamb Ragu with Pappardelle →

As for the tomatoes, my recipe calls for chopping whole canned tomatoes (admittedly a pain, but this is the traditional method). Alli uses crushed tomatoes. No chopping and they are already pretty thick, so the simmering time is just 15 minutes. That’s a smart swap!

Finish with lots of torn fresh basil and serve with Parmesan (although I’d argue with Alli that Pecorino would be even nicer). I have no quibble with her choice of pappardelle. You want the widest flat noodles you can find. Tagliatelle and fettuccine are narrower but still lovely here. Linguine and spaghetti are a no-go: This hearty sauce will overwhelm these more delicate strands.

I serve this comforting pasta dish with a nice Dolcetto from Piedmont or a Tuscan Chianti. Add Ashley Moore’s radicchio salad with arugula and apple and you will have prepared a very special meal. Thank you, Alli. Thank you, Ashley.