A Little Soy Sauce Is All You Need To Amp Up Bolognese

Bolognese is one of the most beloved pasta sauces, and if you love meaty pasta, it probably has a special place in your heart. But what if you could take your homemade Bolognese sauce and make it even better? A surprising ingredient that's more closely related to Asian cooking is the key to meatier-tasting bolognese.

Some professional chefs bring out the flavors of this decadent meat-tomato combination by adding a secret ingredient that's so unexpected you probably wouldn't even think about letting it come near your bolognese. This ingredient bolsters the meat flavors of your sauce, making it taste even richer. Although you may associate it with a very different type of cuisine, it's an addition so important that it's pretty common to use in meat sauces in the professional cooking world. Once you add this ingredient, you'll be blown away by how much more your bolognese tastes like meat.

Do you want to bulk up the meat flavors in your bolognese sauce? Just add a bit of soy sauce to your meat sauce.

You may be wondering how exactly something that doesn't taste like meat can make bolognese taste so meaty. It all comes down to how soy sauce interacts with our taste buds. Soy sauce is full of umami flavor, which is a savory taste. Umami is found in other ingredients you probably include in your bolognese or eat alongside it, like tomatoes and Parmesan cheese. Combine the soy sauce with meat, which also has a significant umami taste, and you'll have the meatiest of meat sauces — without changing the proportions of meat in the sauce. The effect soy sauce can have on bolognese certainly seems like some sort of magic, but while it's perhaps the most fascinating way to "meat up" your bolognese, it's definitely not the only way to bring out those umami flavors.

Making bolognese sauce taste umami isn't limited to stirring in soy sauce. Pasta dishes lend themselves well to umami ingredients, so there are lots of ways to make bolognese even more "meaty" by infusing some umami flavors.

One of the best ways to amp up a bolognese sauce is to add mushrooms. Mushrooms also fall into that "umami" category, and they're hearty enough that they can easily stand in for meat without tasting like you added in a bunch of vegetables. If you have time to prep mushrooms, try adding them to your bolognese sauce for an extra kick of flavor that will flawlessly complement the tomatoes and meat. They'll also mix well with the carrots that you'll find in traditional bolognese sauces. By adding ingredients that are chock-full of umami flavors, that dash of soy sauce won't be the only thing making your bolognese taste meatier than ever.