This recipe for the Olive Garden Bolognese has been on the Internet for years. It is rumored to be their actual recipe. I haven’t seen this recipe on their menu for a long time. This isnít the typical meat sauce that you get there. This one is packed full of fresh vegetables, and it should be on their menu. I thought adding carrots to this sauce sounded a bit strange, but actually it’s quite good. Surprisingly good. I think this recipe could lend itself to whatever you have in your refrigerator and want to use up. This is a very flavorful sauce that goes well on many different types of pasta.
Yield: 4 -6 servings.
2 Tbsp. olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
1 carrot, finely chopped
1 celery, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1/2 pound ground beef
6 ounces Italian sausage, skinned
1 cup red wine (Merlot or Pinot Nior recommended)
28 oz. crushed tomatoes, chopped
1 teaspoon fresh rosemary, chopped (or 1/4 tsp. dry)
1 teaspoon fresh sage
Heat oil in a large pan. Add celery, carrot, onion, and garlic and cook about 5 minutes. Add meat and cook 10 minutes over medium heat, stirring occasionally.† De-glaze pan with wine; let it reduce. Add tomatoes and remaining ingredients and stir; simmer for about 1 hour.† Serve over fresh, hot pasta.
I happened to have some extra red and yellow bell peppers and I added those into the initial step of sauteeing the garlic, onions, celery, and carrots, and they turned out well.
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I did mean to say lend 
Thanks for letting me know I had a typo.
I’ve made this recipe several times in the last few weeks. It’s turning into a favorite of my husband and mine. We eat it on pasta with garlic bread. It’s also very easy to make as long as I plan ahead a bit. Thanks for this! 
I’m trying to make sense of this recipe…. as the picture looks much better than what I can imagine getting from the ingredients listed. First of all, you list “crushed tomatoes, chopped”. Does that make any sense to you? I mean… what on earth is there to chop!? LOL! Secondly, in the picture, there appears to be semi whole tomatoes, which actually looks appealing. So which is it…. do we use crushed tomatoes, whole tomatoes – chopped, or canned whole tomatoes….? Please do say, because the picture looks very tasty! By the way, thank you for listing this recipe!
So, first off, the photo that was taken was from this recipe, so I imagine yours will look just as good. The tomatoes I don’t recall if I used whole and chopped up, or if I used chopped and chopped finer. The tomatoes will break down during the process. but they aren’t going to break down into tomato sauce. ~stephanie
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