Pasta and Meat Sauce: Easy Weeknight Dinner
You know the nostalgia of cooking something your mom used to make for you when you were little? That’s how I feel about pasta and meat sauce. My mom would cook up ground turkey with peppers, onions, and garlic a lot. It was either chili or this meat sauce. Either way, when she got out the pot, you knew dinner was going to be good.
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So, why is this meat sauce so dang good? Maybe it’s because I grew up eating it every week, or maybe it’s because it’s packed with lean protein and vegetables, and it’s served over fun-shaped pasta under a mountain of cheese. How could that be bad?
It’s Story Time!
Anyways, before we talk about how you’re going to throw together this super tasty, family-pleasing, easy-as-can-be, and surprisingly-fancy-feeling dinner, I want to talk about my kid.
Yeah, I don’t give a lot of details about her, and you won’t find pictures of her on social media (except her birth announcement and a handful where you can’t see her face). This is mostly for her privacy, but also because I don’t have her permission.
Let’s get something straight. I’m in no way bashing other moms for posting a bajillion photos of their kids. Please keep posting them. Your family is amazing and beautiful, and I love seeing them. And trust me, my daughter is gorgeous. She’s the best thing I have ever made, hands down.
My Kid vs. Food
So, now to the story. Our routine is that she comes home from daycare and I make her dinner. Mostly, this is to circumvent a full-on hangry meltdown (because she is her father’s daughter… heck, she’s her mother’s daughter. No one in this family functions well when they’re hungry).
And yes, we also sit her down at the table to eat dinner with us. She eats two dinners… and two breakfasts… and two snacks. The child’s stomach is a black hole where calories mysteriously disappear. She’s tiny and strong and eats non-stop.
When I sat her down with a bowl of buttered spaghetti, she pulled one strand out, made a face, and said, “All done.”
She then proceeded to sing us the song of her people, otherwise known as “CHEESE CHEESE CHEESE CHEESE” until someone (me) broke down and gave her a colby jack stick.
The kicker is that she is actually a pretty good eater. She just really doesn’t like spaghetti. She thinks it’s string and that we’re trying to starve her.
Enter Bow Tie Pasta
Quick side note: my semi-Italian husband has this hard and fast rule that you cannot serve meat sauce with spaghetti. Alton Brown will back him up on that, so I have no footing aside from “but that’s how my mom made it.”
Anyways, this particular night, I had to make up a sturdier pasta for our meat sauce. And before you ask, I didn’t give it to the little one for her first dinner because it wasn’t done yet. The plan was to let her try some at second dinner (she’s a hobbit… let’s be real).
So, I mixed up the meat sauce with bow tie pasta and asked the Cub if she was still hungry. NO! She was adamantly not hungry anymore.
When I Don’t Want to Fight…
Moms, you know what I mean when I say that some nights you just don’t have the fight in you to force-feed your toddler, right? This one of those nights. So, I dolled out dinner for the Hubs and me, and we sat on the sofa to eat and watch Curious George.
No sooner had I started shoveling food into my face than tiny little hands were tugging on my pant leg and a little bitty voice was asking, “More? More?” So, I gave her a bite.
And another bite, and another, and another…
This kid ate half my bowl of pasta and meat sauce (if this sounds familiar, she does it at least once a week… I believe I shared a similar story on the Smoked Turkey Shepherd’s Pie post).
But Will She Eat It Again?
Having successfully filled my ever-ravenous child’s belly for once, I saved up a jar of the meat sauce and figured she would eat it for dinner the next night. But would she eat it when presented to her in her own little bowl with her own little fork?
Of course not. Because she only eats snacks, daycare meals, and Mommy’s food.
Cut to Today
Last night, we had an emergency daycare pick up and a trip to the doctor only to find out that she had not only a 104ºF fever but also strep AND the flu. So, when she woke up fever free and eating everything under the sun, I figured let’s eat some pasta.
I made her the rest of the bow tie pasta, and she gobbled it down like no one’s business. Then, she crashed for what I am hoping will be a long restful nap, something I wish I was doing too.
Anyways, the overall points here are that A) I love my weird, beautiful, bottomless pit of a daughter, and B) I hope she grows up wanting to make meat sauce to remind her of her mama.
Making Meat Sauce
Now, let’s get into the nitty-gritty of actually making meat sauce. There is definitely an episode of Good Eats where Alton Brown goes through this whole day-long process of making meat sauce aka bolognese sauce. And, yes, that sauce looks damn fine.
However, this is a pared-down, quick, and easy-to-make version that works great on a weeknight. The only key is having the ingredients in the house. I mean, obviously, but like, having to run to the store for something makes this way less convenient. Right?
Can You Cook Frozen Ground Turkey?
So, I start with browning ground turkey. Fresh is best, but if you’re like me, all your ground meat is in the freezer. My trick to this is slapping a frozen brick of the stuff into my pan and constantly flipping it and scraping off the cooked parts until it’s all broken up and browned. Then I set it aside in a bowl.
Frozen or Fresh Peppers and Onions? Yes.
Now, some grocery stores have bags of frozen diced onions and bell peppers for a buck (looking at you Kroger). This is the true savior of the weeknight dinner. I love just dumping some frozen vegetables into the pan without having to break out the cutting board.
However, it’s really not that hard to cut up a pepper and an onion, either. Regardless of which form your vegetables are in, go ahead and toss them into that pan. You can leave the meat in, but I do it this way out of habit.
When the peppers and onions are nice and soft, I toss in a little garlic and tomato paste. I mix the meat back in and pour in a little red wine. With liquid in the pan, you can scrub the browned, crusty bits from the bottom of the pan to amp up the flavor.
Then, it’s just a matter of dumping in a can of crushed tomatoes, seasoning it, and then letting it simmer while the pasta cooks (or for 30 minutes).
Picking Your Pasta
Okay, I’ll admit that I love spaghetti with meat sauce. That’s how my mom makes it. However, any true pasta enthusiast will tell you that spaghetti does a shoddy job of holding up the sauce. It’s a thin, tiny noodle in a sauce with large chunks of good stuff.
So, what you really need is a heartier pasta. Rotini is great because it has those corkscrew indentations where a chunky sauce can fill in and hang out.
Something like penne, ziti, or rigatoni has a large hole through it for that sauce to really get in there. That’s kind of nice, too.
I love bow tie because it’s cute, and it acts like a little dinner plate for your sauce, even without the ridged texture to hold onto a chunky sauce.
Ready to Make Pasta and Meat Sauce?
All you have to do is pick a pasta that makes you happy, regardless of shape. Then, make up a large batch of this hearty sauce for an easy weeknight dinner of pasta and meat sauce. Top it with a sprinkle or a mountain of parmesan, and you’re sure to please the whole family.
I want to hear from you! What dish makes you nostalgic? Do you have your own recipe for meat sauce? Comment below and talk to me! And don’t forget to subscribe for weekly updates!
Meat Sauce with Bow Tie Pasta
Equipment
- 2 Large Pots
- Strainer
Ingredients
- 1 pound bow tie pasta
- 1 Tbsp olive oil extra virgin
- 1 pound ground turkey
- 1 small yellow onion diced
- 1 large green bell pepper diced
- 1 Tbsp minced garlic
- 2 Tbsp tomato paste
- ¼ cup dry red wine
- 28 oz crushed tomatoes crushed
- 1 tsp pink Himalayan sea salt (plus 1 Tbsp for pasta water)
- 1 tsp ground black pepper
- 2 Tbsp Italian seasoning (no salt added)
Instructions
- Heat a large pot to medium heat, and drizzle in the olive oil. Crumble in the ground turkey to brown. Once brown, remove from the pot and set aside.
- Add diced onion and pepper to the pot. Saute until softened, and the onions are lightly golden. Add in the garlic. Saute until fragrant.
- Stir in the tomato paste, and cook for 2 minutes. Deglaze the pot with red wine, scraping the bottom of the pot to incorporate the fond.
- Add the ground turkey back to the pot. Pour in the crushed tomatoes and add the Italian seasoning, stirring to combine. Cover, and simmer for 30 minutes.
- Fill a second pot with water, and season liberally with salt. Bring to a boil.
- Add pasta to the boiling water and cook until al dente. Drain the pasta, reserving 1 cup of the pasta water. Dump the cooked pasta into the pot of meat sauce.
- Season with salt and pepper to taste.
- Serve with a generous pile of shredded parmesan on top!
