Bolognese Recipe

This recipe is a little bit keto unfriendly because of the carbs from the onions and tomatoes but it's still delicious and they key to keeping it keto is to make sure you use very high fat mince in order to keep the macros in line.

Ingredients
1 tbsp olive oil
500g high fat beef mince (this recipe used 18%)
2 brown onions
2 400g tins of chopped tomato
2 garlic cloves (or use minced garlic or powdered garlic)
1 tsp salt (more or less depending on your taste, remember there's a lot of salt in the tinned tomatoes)
1 tsp black pepper
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp dried basil
1 tsp dried rosemary
1 pinch sugar

1 chopped whole chilli (optional)

side note - a lot of people add

125ml red wine
2 bay leaves

If you're eating this for health reasons the wine doesn't actually take much away (because the alcohol evaporates) so you can, however I don't feel like bay leaves add anything to a bolognese so I don't include them.

Method

1. Peel and dice the onions into a bowl and add all the herbs and spices. Add the oil to a saucepan on high heat and wait for it to get hot and then add the onions, herbs and spices in keeping it on a high heat but stirring constantly so the onions don't burn. High heat is important because otherwise the onions begin to stew and don't develop the delicious caramelised flavours we're looking for. Once the onions have turned slightly brown (please don't burn them) turn off the heat, allow to cool slightly and scrape the onions back into the bowl. Caramelising the onions should only take 5-6 minutes on a high heat.

2. Turn the saucepan back on to high heat and add the beef, once again high heat is super important because you want to seal the meat to keep it succulent.If you're using high fat mince you shouldn't need to add any more oil to the pan but you can if it would make you feel comfortable. Once again make sure you're constantly stirring the beef to make sure it doesn't burn to the bottom of the saucepan, once the meat is 80% sealed (i.e. you can only see a few bits and pieces of red raw mince left in the saucepan) you can add the onions back in.

3. Once the meat is fully sealed, turn the heat down to med-low and you can add in the 2 tins of tomato into the saucepan. When you first add in the tomatoes it will still look kind of thick, allow it to simmer for a few minutes and the liquids and solids of the tomatoes will separate and the top of your Bolognese will look very watery. Now you want to turn the heat down to low and allow it to simmer. You probably want it to simmer for at least 2 hours and allow for significant amounts of the water to evaporate so your Bolognese can develop it's delicious rich flavour profile.

Macro Nutrient Breakdown

Based on the above ingredients and cooking method a 250g serve of your finished product should yield you the following macro nutrient breakdown

Carbs 15g (19%)

Protein 23g (29%)

Fat 18g (52%)

Calories 322

As I said it's walking a fine line of not being keto due to the high carb count so a good idea is to add a lot of parmesan or cheddar cheese in order to beef up the fat and protein content of the dish.

Accompaniments

As above I would add plenty of cheese to make it more keto friendly and to give it that authentic feel some courgette (zucchini) or carrot spaghetti. If you chose carrot be warned they have 1g of carb per 10g of carrot.

Some Keto power food, Bolognese with Carrot Spaghetti and Sliced Cheddar 51g protein 32g carbohydrates 49g fat 774 calories #lchf #keto #ketosis #ketodiet #ketogenic #ketopower #ketoaf #lowcarb #foodporn #goodfood #highfat #healthyfat #yummy #banting #primal #fitfam #weightloss

A photo posted by @thefitpublican on Sep 9, 2016 at 11:22pm PDT