CopyKat.com is the creation of Stephanie Manley. Stephanie started publishing recipes on the web in 1995 as a means to capture her family recipes in a format that they would not be thrown away.
Over the years 
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 isn’t 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 that adding the carrots to this sauce sounded, a bit strange, but actually it was quite good. Surprisingly good. I think this recipe could lend itself to whatever you have in your refrigerator and you want to use up. This is a very flavorful sauce that goes well on many different types of pasta.
Olive Garden Bolognese
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
1 carrot, finely chopped
1 celery, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1/2 lb ground beef
6 ounces Italian sausage, skinned
1 cup red wine (Merlot or Pinot Nior recommended)
28 ounces 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 satueeing the garlic, onions, celery, and carrots and they turned out well.
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
Sounds great! Just one challenge for me. I am an alcoholic and no matter what they say, I know not all of the alcohol cooks out. Any suggestions for a replacement for the wine? Maybe vinegar, or grape juice, or the combination of the two?
You are right, alcohol never fully cooks out, in fact it is surprising how much does not cook out, Alcohol burn off chart. I would use maybe chicken/vegetable stock to replace the alcohol. I personally wouldn’t add the vinegar, I think the taste would be too sharp, grape juice is a possibility, I think it may be too sweet. ~Stephanie
Olive Garden meat sauce recipe
I used to work for Olive Garden and I can tell you that this is not the original recipe. There was a lot of cream, three different meats and tomato suace, but not much veggies.
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 love this recipe. My husband said it is a keeper. We ate this with pasta and garlic bread. Thanks for the recipe.
I love this recipe. My wife ate her’s on pasta, but I ate mine right out of a bowl as pictured above with breadsticks. mmmmm!!
“could tend itself”
What the hell does that mean? Did you intend to say it could “lend” itself?
I did mean to say lend
Thanks for letting me know I had a typo.