Spicy courgetti bolognese

BY:
Pip
PUBLISHED:
UPDATED:

A tasty twist on traditional spaghetti bolognese

20 mins

40 mins

221 kcals

serves 4

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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.

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Spicy courgetti bolognese


  • Author: Pip Payne
  • Total Time: 1 hour
  • Yield: 4 1x

Description

A tasty twist on traditional spaghetti bolognese

Syns: 1 per portion


Ingredients

Scale
  • 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

  1. Heat 1 tsp olive oil, and add in the onion. Cook gently for about 5 minutes until softened
  2. Add in the celery and garlic and stir fry for a couple of minutes
  3. Add in the canned tomatoes, tomato puree, balsamic vinegar, brown sugar, carrot, and some salt and pepper, and bring to a simmer
  4. 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.
  5. 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.
  6. Cut the ends off the courgettes and spiralize into spaghetti shape. Set aside
  7. 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.
  8. Put the smooth tomato sauce back onto simmer, and add in the cooked mince beef. Heat through for 5 minutes.
  9. In a large bowl, mix together the courgetti and bolognese sauce. Serve with plenty of torn basil and parmesan.

Notes

This is also delicious with regular or wholewheat spaghetti!

  • Prep Time: 20 minutes
  • Cook Time: 40 minutes

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