Molto Meat Red Pasta Sauce Recipe

I‘ve been making this meaty red sauce recipe since I was a teenager. It was dictated to me by my best friend’s father, a food-loving, second-generation Sicilian who never cooked from written recipes. His directions included “some” ground chuck, a “coupla” thick slices of bacon, a “little” red wine—you get the picture. Though I’ve been cooking and tinkering with it for 30+ years, I haven’t made this sauce much recently.

See, I have a (cough) beef with meat. As you might guess, Molto Meat Red Pasta Sauce uses a lot of meat: Bacon, ground beef, ground pork, and even sausage, if you have it. While the sauce includes Italian tomatoes, crushed red pepper and herbs, it’s the mix of slow-simmered meats that makes it so savory, delicious and, for me, troubling.

I’m picky about sourcing humanely-raised meat. I don’t believe for a minute am skeptical of “organic” or “free-range” meat marketer’s claims. I like to buy only from farmers I know and trust.

While I’m lucky to source chicken and beef from local farmers, finding pork from happy, pasture-raised pigs has been tougher. Until recently. A few months ago, I started buying pork from Spring Lake Farm, the Catskills farm of Ulla Kvarval and her family.

The Kjarval pigs live happy piggy lives, grazing, rooting and roaming the Kjarval’s lush, rotated pastures.

And that makes my family happy—because I can once more make this rich, savory sauce.



Molto Meat Red Pasta Sauce is great spooned over short pastas that hold up under the sauce’s heft: penne, rigatoni, farfalle. It also makes an over-the-top lasagne.

Molto Meat Red Pasta Sauce

3 slices thick-cut bacon from pastured pork, diced
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
1 large carrot, peeled and diced
1 stalk celery, diced
2 cloves garlic, crushed
½ pound ground pastured pork
1 pound ground grassfed beef
½ hot Italian sausage made from pastured pork
1 28-ounce can Italian tomatoes, roughly chopped
1 6-ounce can imported Italian tomato paste
1 tablespoon dried herbs of your choice: oregano, basil, rosemary
1 teaspoon crushed red pepper
2 teaspoons Demerara sugar
Splash of red wine
2-4 cups water
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
1-1½ pounds imported short pasta such as farfalle, penne or rigatoni

1. In Dutch oven or other large, heavy pot, over medium flame, fry bacon. Be careful not to overcook the bacon. You want it cooked through, but not crispy. Remove bacon with slotted spoon and reserve on plate lined with double layer of paper towel.
2. You’ll find pastured pork very lean. If you don’t have enough bacon fat to fry your vegetables, add the tablespoon of olive oil to the pot. When oil is heated and fragrant, toss in onions, carrot and celery, sirring to fry for 3-4 minutes.
3. Add crushed garlic and continue to fry for another minute or two, stirring and adjusting flame so vegetables don’t burn.
4. Push vegetables to side of pan and add ground pork and beef to the pot. Fry the meats, breaking them up with a spoon as they cook. Note: Pastured meat is usually very lean. Unless yours is fatty, you don’t need to cook and drain your meat separately.
5. If using sausage, however, you will need to fry it in a pan. Slice open the sausage casing and fry the sausage meat in a medium-sized skillet, breaking up the meat with a spoon as you fry it. Drain and reserve the sausage.
6. When beef and pork mixture is cooked, add the tomatoes, tomato paste, wine, sugar, red pepper, reserved bacon and sausage (optional) along with 2 cups of water. Stir to blend ingredients. Cover pot, bring to a simmer, then uncover pot and adjust flame so sauce stays at a low simmer. Cook sauce for 1-3 hours—the longer the better—stirring occasionally to keep sauce from burning. Add more water a half-cup at a time, as needed.
7. For last half-hour of cooking, add the tablespoon—or more—of dried herbs along with salt and pepper to taste.
8. About 20 minutes before you want to serve, cook and drain the pasta.
9. Spoon sauce over hot pasta. Serve immediately, passing a bowl of Parmesan cheese.

Makes enough sauce for 1½ pounds of pasta.

Photos of Spring Lake Farm courtesy of Ulla Kjarval.