Slow-Cooker Bolognese

Bolognese is one of our favorite recipes to make during the winter: It instantly warms you up and makes you feel sooo cozy. 

Do I need to cook the meat on the stovetop before?

OK, so this is one step that some people will be like "Ugh, seriously?!", but I firmly believe it just makes the sauce that much better. We start the recipe by sautéing onion, carrots, and celery (the holy trinity that's mandatory in all bolognese) and then once that's going add the ground beef to brown it. The vegetables will steam in the slow cooker, but they'll never sauté, so we prefer to get them a little golden to help coax out some flavor before hitting the slow cooker.

The meat will brown on the stovetop—whereas it'll just steam in the slow cooker—and you can drain its fat before it goes into the slow cooker, which is a huge bonus.

Will my milk curdle in the slow cooker?

Weirdly no—we were worried about this, too.

Can I also cook the pasta in the slow cooker?

You actually can—but this recipe makes so much bolognese sauce that we like to add some to pasta we cook separately before freezing the rest of the bolognese for later use.