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I make Bolognese and homemade pasta every year on Christmas Eve. Sometimes I’ll turn it into a Lasagne alla Bolognese and other times we eat it straight up with hand cut noodles. The process of having nowhere to go and nothing to do but eat, cook, wrap presents and be merry makes the long AF simmering time seem nothing more than an excuse for extra Christmas cheer. 

Enter the remaining 364 days of my year and ain’t nobody got time for that. By the time I’m able to make dinner, I’ve already worked a full day, wrestled a very strong toddler and made him some form of dinner he likely doesn’t end up eating. Needless to say there is no way in hell I’ve got the time nor patience to stand over a pot of simmering meat sauce for upwards of 3 hours. 

HOWEVER, sometimes you just need a comforting bowl of pasta topped with a sauce with that slow-simmered taste. Or perhaps you have a husband (who shall remain nameless) that requests Bolognese for dinner on a Tuesday night as if that’s normal. 

They say necessity is the mother of invention and from that necessity this Weeknight Bolognese was born. Now before we go any further, let me offer a disclaimer that this Bolognese strays slightly from tradition, so please don’t call the DOC or DOP on me.  The first transgression is that it’s cooked in an Instant Pot rather than in a saucepan on the stove. The second is that instead of ground pork, I used spicy Italian sausage. I found that using sausage already packed with seasoning really helped to develop the flavor more quickly than when starting with plain ground meat. 

Now if you can get past my riffs, I promise you this cheater’s Bolognese is just as good as the real thing. Will I stop making the real deal on Christmas? No. Because what are the holidays without tradition? Will I make this version at least once a week? Absolutely.  

Recipe and Headnote Molly Adams