Instant Pot Bolognese Sauce Recipe (Pressure Cooker Bolognese) (2024)

FAQs

How long do you cook Bolognese in a pressure cooker? ›

Bring to a simmer then put the lid on the pressure cooker, bring up to pressure and cook for 20 mins. Release the pressure, then serve with spaghetti, sprinkled with parmesan and basil leaves, if you like.

But to me, the biggest difference when compared to the tomato-heavy meat sauce I grew up with, is that Ragù Bolognese uses milk, white wine and notably less tomatoes. The milk tenderizes the meat and mellows out any tart, acidic notes. The flavor is soft, light and slightly sweet! That's the selling point.

During cooking, you can further improve your meat sauce by adding other flavourings to boost complexity; a splash of worcestershire or even some soy which are both especially good with beef mince. My favourite Calabrian nonna adds a piece of pig skin the size of a cheese slice (ask your butcher).

To prevent spaghetti sauce from burning in the Instant Pot, make sure you deglaze the pot by scraping the bottom with a spoon after sautéing the onions and garlic. This helps to remove any browned bits and prevents them from sticking and burning during pressure cooking.

Unfortunately, once you overcook a piece of meat in the pressure cooker, there's no going back. You'll be left with a pile of dry, crunchy, tasteless fibers and no amount of additional pressure cooking is going to put that moisture back into the meat. Earlier, I explained how ingredient size affects the cooking time.

Like most recipes the longer you leave it to slowly cook the better the flavour will be but this can also be knocked up with in an hour.

However, there are as many recipe versions of this delicious slow-cooked sauce as there are cooks in the Italian city of Bologna. The secret ingredient to a true Bolognese Sauce is milk (or cream), which is added in such small amount, you don't even know it's there.

Milk is a magical ingredient when it comes to bolognese. First, the lactic acid and calcium in milk help to tenderize the meat. More than that, though, milk balances the wine and tomato, creates a creamier texture and adds richness (similar to how butter or yogurt add more richness and flavor to dishes).

In traditional Italian bolognese recipes, celery is often included as one of the "soffrito" ingredients, along with onions and carrots, which are sautéed in olive oil as a base for the sauce. Celery adds a slightly sweet and earthy flavor to the sauce and can also help balance out the acidity of the tomatoes.

Cornstarch: Make a slurry of half water, half cornstarch and whisk until smooth. Cornstarch is a powerful thickener, so start by whisking in no more than 1 tablespoon of the mixture per 2 cups of simmering sauce; stir and simmer for 2 minutes, check the thickness, and repeat with more slurry as needed.

Should I put beef stock in bolognese? ›

beef stock/broth instead of stock cubes – to add extra flavour into the sauce and make it watery at the start so we can “boil” the pasta. In classic Bolognese, we use stock cubes and add no water (unless doing a slow cook).

The Instant Pot's burn message simply means that your Instant Pot has detected that its inner pot has gotten too hot. There may be a slight amount of burned food at the bottom of your pot, but not enough to ruin whatever you're cooking.

Lai says the most common cause for a burn notification is not adding enough liquid to the pot or using thick ingredients like a thick tomato sauce. "If you sauté prior to pressure cooking and you do not properly deglaze the bottom of the pot, food stuck to the bottom can cause the burn notification," says Lai.

Does spaghetti sauce count as a liquid in Instant Pot? Technically, no. Spaghetti sauce does not count as a liquid in the instant pot, which makes the beef broth a critical element that will help thin the sauce so the instant pot can cook everything properly.

There's another aspect of pressure cookers to consider too. Steam penetrates food easily under pressure. So connective tissues in cubes of beef for soups or stews soften in 15 minutes or less, and a pot roast will be medium-rare in 30 minutes.

Cooking time: When cooking a pot roast in an Instant Pot, allow 20 minutes for every pound of meat.

My electric pressure cooker takes about 10–15 minutes to pressurize and cook. It really depends on the amount of liquid inside. Little amount of liquid will reach boiling point a lot faster and will bring the cooker to pressure much faster than if the pot is half full.