My keto Bolognese is a family favorite! It is a meaty, flavorful sauce that tastes delicious served over low carb pasta or zucchini noodles.

A pot with Bolognese sauce and a wooden spoon.

I love making meals that our entire family loves to eat, low carb or not. And, I love to meal prep.

Well, this Bolognese sauce ticks all my boxes. My kids eat it with "real" spaghetti and the husband and I enjoy it as keto spaghetti Bolognese (with zoodles).

It contains oodles of hidden vegetables, which would make any mama happy. The recipe is also meal prep dream, which is why I have written it to make 12 portions and not my usual 4 servings.

Bolognese sauce plays a central part in so many other dishes we eat that we require absolute masses of it. It's right up there with our other keto dinner favorites, my creamy keto fish pie and these Italian-style keto meatballs.

I first posted this recipe in January 2017 and updated the post with plenty of recipe tips and tweaks in April 2024..

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Ingredients
Instructions
Variations
Serving Suggestion
Storage
Fun Fact
More Easy Dinners
Recipe

Ingredients

Here is what you need for a low carb Bolognese sauce:

Vegetables: Onions, carrots, celery stalks, red pepper, zucchini. I grate the zucchini and as it cooks, it disintegrates and makes the sauce lovely and thick.

Meat: We love to up our protein on a keto diet, that's why this sauce contains plenty of ground beef. I also like to add pancetta, which is Italian bacon, for extra flavor.

Wet Ingredients: Quality plum tomatoes from a tin. I always buy a brand called Mutti. I also add tomato paste, dry red wine and beef stock. You could use white wine instead of red. Or, just add more broth if you don't want to add alcohol.

Seasonings: Bay leaves, oregano, thyme and basil plus pepper and salt. The oregano and thyme I used were dried, but in my opinion, use a fresh bunch of basil. It tastes so much better.

See the recipe card for full information on ingredients and quantities.

Instructions

Making Bolognese sauce does take a little while. But, after you've done the chopping and browning of the meat and the vegetables, it just bubbles along on the stove.

It is actually a very easy recipe. Here are the basic steps:

STEP 1: Fry the bacon, then saute all vegetables except the zucchini until they are soft.

STEP 2: Brown the ground beef in batches. This adds so much flavor.

STEP 3: Combine all ingredients in a large saucepan. Bring to the boil and then let the sauce simmer for at least 1 hour until it reduces ans becomes rich and thick.

That's it! Adjust the seasoning and serve as you see fit.

Katrin's Top Tip

The longer you cook Bolognese, the softer the meat becomes. Let it simmer for two hours if you have the time.

It's one of those dishes that taste even better on the second day, when the flavors have had time to mingle.

A large saucepan with Bolognese sauce and a tray with roasted eggplant and zucchini slices.

Variations

Here are ideas how you can tweak keto Bolognese:

Make it spicy: Add 1 chopped red chili or a pinch of dried chili flakes.

Make it creamy: Add ½ cup heavy cream, mascarpone or ricotta towards the end of cooking.

Tweak the flavor: Rosemary is a traditional Bolognese herb, so feel free to add it. Not traditional at all, but equally delicious in this sauce are 1-2 tablespoons of coconut aminos or soy sauce (reduce the salt if you add it) as well as ½ tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce.

Serving Suggestion

The sauce is so delicious that I could eat it all on its own. But of course, you can also serve it over "keto spaghetti":

Spiralized zucchini, also called zoodles. You can buy these ready-made in many supermarkets
Roasted spaghetti squash
Almond flour pasta
Palmini noodles

... and top it with a generous amount or parmesan cheese.

By the way, shirataki noodles are not the ideal pairing for Bolognese - to me, they works better with Asian dishes. I see them as a replacement for rice noodles.

More Uses

Cottage Pie - add a cheesy mashed cauliflower topping and bake in the oven for about 20 minutes, like my keto cottage pie.

Stuffed vegetables: Stuff aubergine, zucchini boats or bell peppers with the sauce, then bake.

Vegetable lasagne: Use layers of zucchini or eggplant instead of pasta

Keto beef pies: Just like I did in this keto chicken pot pie recipe, top the Bolognese with a low carb pie crust.

Meat feast Pizza: Use the Bolognese on my almond flour pizza crust.

Or, simply spoon the sauce into lettuce leaves and eat like you would a taco.

Storage

Store the sauce in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 5 days or in freezer for up to 3 months.

When I freeze the sauce, I like to portion it into servings of two to 4, depending on how many people I'll be cooking for.

Fun Fact

The Italians don't actually call this sauce Bolognese, but simply ragù - meat sauce. And despite its name, the true origins of the sauce are thought to be in the town of Imola, situated west of Bologna. The first recorded version featured in the eminent cookbook "La science in cucina e l'arte di mangiar bene" (The Science of Cooking and the Art of Fine Dining) in 1891. It included truffle, chicken liver and cream.