Can you freeze beef bolognese?
Yes. Freeze it in containers, one meal to each.
How to freeze and defrost it, with the Food Standards Agency’s advice at each step.
The recipe
One batch makes 8 portions.
Ingredients for 8 portions
Method
Prep
- Boil the kettle.
- Peel onions and carrot and dice them small, about 5 mm.
- Trim celery stick and dice it the same size.
- Crush garlic clove.
Sauce
- Dissolve beef stock cube in water from the kettle in a jug.
- Heat olive oil in your biggest pan (at least 5 litres) over a medium heat. Fry the onion, carrot and celery for 10 minutes until soft.
- Stir in the garlic for 1 minute.
- Turn the heat up, add mince beef and fry for 8 minutes until browned all over, breaking it up with a wooden spoon as it goes.
- Stir in tomato puree and dried oregano and cook for 1 minute.
- Tip in chopped tomatoes and the stock, then add dried bay leaf and black pepper.
- Bubble it uncovered for 40 minutes until thick, stirring now and then so it doesn't catch. It looks thin at first but cooks down.
-
Any meat that has been minced or skewered all the way through should be cooked thoroughly.
, says the Food Standards Agency. - Take it off the heat and fish out the bay leaves.
How to freeze
-
cool any warm dishes before putting them in your freezer
, says the Food Standards Agency. - Pour into your containers, one meal to each, and seal.
How to defrost
-
the safest way to defrost food is in the fridge overnight
, says the Food Standards Agency. - Take it out of its container.
- Tip it into a pan and heat it, stirring, until it’s steaming hot all the way through.
-
it is important that food is cooked to steaming hot throughout, rather than warmed
, says the Food Standards Agency.
How we’d cook it, not advice. We don’t check recipes for allergens, and ingredients vary by brand, so check the label on everything you use. Prepare and cook food the way the Food Standards Agency says. Allergens and food safety
Nutrition
Per portion- Energy
- 310 kcal
- Fat
- 17.1g
- Carbohydrate
- 11g
- Protein
- 27.6g
Nutrition details
- Energy
- 310 kcal
- Fat
- 17.1g
- of which saturates
- 6g
- Carbohydrate
- 11g
- of which sugars
- 9.4g
- Fibre
- 3.3g
- Protein
- 27.6g
- Salt
- 0.89g
Estimated from ingredient data.
Made some already? Add it to your stash. Mark it always in and Nomstash tells you when you’re running low.
Used in
No special kit
- Works best in freezer bags Any freezer-safe container does the job too.
- Everything from one shop Batch cook it with Nomstash and the freezer bags go on the same shopping list as the food.
Cook what you already cook
-
Already keep a freezer spreadsheet?
Paste it in from Excel or Google Sheets, or choose a CSV file, and Nomstash reads it into your stash.
Bring in my freezer list
Freezing and defrosting safely
The Food Standards Agency’s advice, in their words.
Label everything you freeze.
label food you freeze so you don’t end up with Unidentified Frozen Objects (UFOs)
The rest of the Food Standards Agency’s advice, in their words, is in our freezing and defrosting guide.
Sources
- Food Standards Agency How to chill, freeze and defrost food safely gov.uk
- Food Standards Agency Cooking your food gov.uk
Last checked . Each quotation on this page was read against the page it links to.