One of my favorite food writers recently sent a newsletter featuring a recipe for pasta Bolognese that caught my attention.

Meaty, aromatic sauce

Bolognese is a rich, hearty pasta sauce made from ground meat (usually beef, but sometimes pork), tomatoes, onions, carrots, milk and other ingredients and seasonings.

As he pointed out, it fills your kitchen with a comforting, mouth-watering aroma as it simmers. However, as I scanned this recipe, which encouraged higher-fat ingredients, I sighed and clicked off.

I follow a lot of food writers on social media and newsletter services, but when I see copious amounts of cheese, heavy cream, butter or high-fat meat, I keep scrolling.

I know, I know. Everyone deserves a special treat occasionally — right? And I agree with that, but based on experience, we have found that splurges add up quickly. There’s always a reason to indulge — birthdays, vacations, anniversaries, holidays, a hard day at work, news overload — and it becomes easier to talk ourselves into doing it more often. It happens so easily.

I usually try to find ways to substitute lower-fat ingredients for high-fat ones or reduce amounts, but some recipes would be ruined with too much alteration. Instead, I search online for something similar.

Lingering memories

As weeks went by, that recipe kept haunting me, and memories of other Bolognese sauces floated through my mind.

When we were kids, my mom used to make a version where she added browned ground beef to tomato sauce with a bit of fennel seed, and we called it “ground meat gravy.” She served it over shell pasta, and some of the meat nestled inside the shells. It was always a hit.

But one time Dan and I cruised with an Italian cruise line that served pasta with Bolognese sauce for lunch. As we sat looking over the water, twirling spaghetti in the rich, meaty sauce, it was hard to picture anything more blissful.

Driven by this memory, I finally googled chicken Bolognese recipes and quickly found one — Best Chicken Bolognese by Clair Cary on her gluten-free blog, Eat With Clarity.

Best Chicken Bolognese is a one-pan sauce that combines onion, carrots, olive oil, garlic, tomato sauce and paste, ground chicken and wine with additional seasonings. It comes together quickly and simmers for about 45 minutes.

Although Clair dices the onion and carrot, I coarsely processed them in a food chopper because I like that texture. She recommends using either red or white wine. I used sauvignon blanc.

The sauce was multifaceted, quick and easy, but next time I’d like to try dry red wine for richer flavor. It’s also interesting to skim the comments to see what others added to the recipe.

The recipe is definitely a keeper.