Spicy courgetti bolognese
A tasty twist on traditional spaghetti bolognese
20 mins
40 mins
221 kcals
serves 4
SPICY COUGETTI BOLOGNESE
I quite often end up adding chilli into my spaghetti bolognese to liven it up a bit, and thought I would try one that’s meant to be spicy. When it was ready, I decided to try it out with courgetti (spiralized courgette) rather than traditional spaghetti to see if it would work. I find normally if I have bolognese sauce with courgetti I just want pasta too- I think you need a bit of zing with courgetti to really enjoy it!
I was sent some of Cirio’s range of tomatoes to try out, and for this I used the plum tomatoes and one of the little pots of tomato puree. The Cirio tomatoes really are lovely rich tomatoes- they are tinned on the day of picking to retain a really authentic Italian taste,
I have two spiralizers- this one from Amazon (click here) and a super cheap one that I got from ebay (click here to see a similar one on Amazon).The big one is great, you can use different blades for different things and it’s very efficient, but the little cheap one is also great- you are limited to just one thickness of spiral but it’s fine!
I don’t pre-cook my courgetti as it releases a lot of water, but if you don’t like this idea you can blanch it (drop it into a pan of boiling water and drain it immediately) before mixing with the sauce.
Spicy courgetti bolognese
Ingredients
- 500 g extra lean beef mince
- 2 tbsp tomato puree
- 1 can plum or chopped tomatoes
- 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
- 1 tsp brown sugar
- 1 onion chopped
- 2 cloves garlic chopped or crushed
- 1 carrot peeled and roughly chopped
- 1 stick celery finely chopped
- 1 red wine stock pot Tesco, or 1 beef stock pot or cube
- 1 fresh red chilli
- 2 large courgettes
- handful fresh basil
- freshly grated parmesan optional
- salt and pepper
- 1 tsp olive oil
Instructions
- Heat 1 tsp olive oil, and add in the onion. Cook gently for about 5 minutes until softened
- Add in the celery and garlic and stir fry for a couple of minutes
- Add in the canned tomatoes, tomato puree, balsamic vinegar, brown sugar, carrot, and some salt and pepper, and bring to a simmer
- Dissolve the stock pot or cube in 200ml water and add in. Leave on to simmer gently (lid off) for 40 minutes. Add in a little extra water if it starts to dry out too much.
- In the meantime, fry the beef mince in a non-stock frying pan on a high heat (I used Fry light for this) stirring constantly to brown through and break down any lumps (approx ten minutes) and then set to one side.
- Cut the ends off the courgettes and spiralize into spaghetti shape. Set aside
- When the sauce has been bubbling away for 40 minutes and is lovely and rich, either use a food processor or a hand blender to blitz it up. I add the whole red chilli at this point (stalk removed) including the seeds. If you want to tone down the heat a little then remove the seeds before adding the chilli.
- Put the smooth tomato sauce back onto simmer, and add in the cooked mince beef. Heat through for 5 minutes.
- In a large bowl, mix together the courgetti and bolognese sauce. Serve with plenty of torn basil and parmesan.
