Slow cooker spaghetti bolognese recipe

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We love a nice simple dinner in our home. Especially one that can be packed full of hidden vegetables! Daisy, our 4-year-old, is a big fan of this slow cooker spaghetti bolognese and she is pretty fussy!

You can get this slow cooker spaghetti bolognese in your slow cooker in just a few minutes and it’ll cook itself while you’re at work, playing with your little one or just relaxing! If you don’t have a slow cooker then try my 15 minute spaghetti bolognese or if you want to do something a little different then be sure to check out my slow cooker beef recipes.

Meal planning with mince is one of my favourite ways to save money on groceries, and it is a great way to stay organised too!

I love knowing that we have the slow cooker on, so that at the end of a long day we have a lovely healthy meal waiting for us. It’s super delicious as it is but I love to search this with my own garlic bread too. If you want to skip making bread then just use my garlic butter recipe to jazz up a few slices of bread. Be sure to check out my slow cooker tips while you’re here too.

Ingredients for slow cooker spaghetti bolognese

250g beef mince (5% is my preferred)

300ml passata

Beef or red wine stock cube or jelly 

1 tsp basil + oregano

2 cloves of garlic/garlic puree or 1 tsp garlic salt

Salt and pepper

2 onions

2 carrots

2 stalks of celery

100g of mushrooms (chestnut was used in this recipe)

Optional other vegetables: peas, sweetcorn or just about anything that you have in your fridge!

Serve over 150g of spaghetti.

Method for slow cooker spaghetti bolognese

If you have a slow cooker with a browning function then I suggest using this, however, if you want to you CAN skip the browning steps I’m about to mention.

Add your mince, brown it off, drain any excess oil and season with salt and pepper.

Brown any vegetables that you’ll be using.

Add everything into your slow cooker pot.

Cook on high for 4 hours. You can also cook on low for 6-8 hours, or even longer. Do be sure to read the instructions for your slow cooker as I’ve owned a few now and they often want you to use them on high for 20-30 minutes, just to get it warmed up quickly and safely.

Serve with cooked, drained spaghetti. You CAN cook the spaghetti in the slow cooker, but personally I just don’t enjoy the texture. It sucks up all the sauce, and it’s hard to get the quantities right.

If you want to do this then use fresh spaghetti, from the fridge in the supermarket, as this takes about 20-25 minutes to cook in the slow cooker pot alongside the bolognese mixture.

Top with your choice of cheese. We LOVE parmesan.

Optional: Serve with a lovely air fryer garlic bread or bread roll to soak up all that delicious sauce.

Can you add spaghetti to the slow cooker when making spaghetti bolognese?

Yes, absolutely. I have used fresh spaghetti, and added it for the final 20-30 minutes. It WILL absorb more of the liquid, so you’ll want to be careful to not let it dry out.

Personally I find that cooking the spaghetti on the hob, draining and then adding the mince, is the much superior way of making this dish. The spaghetti cooks perfectly and you don’t have to add any additional water to the dish or potentially mess up the quantities if you don’t like to weigh your spaghetti.

Can you make spaghetti bolognese and meatballs in slow cooker?

Alsolutely! If you’re making homemade air fryer meatballs then make sure they’re quite firm, and brown first. If you’re using ready made meatballs then you can prepare the sauce and vegetables and then pop these in too. 4 hours on high is sufficient to cook them, or 6 on low.

Can you make slow cooker spaghetti bolognese without browning the meat or mince?

Yes. As I’ve mentioned above you CAN skip the browning step if you want to. Personally I like to brown the mince to know it is cooked well, and because I find that it improves the texture slightly.

How to make slow cooker spaghetti bolognese using dolmio or another jar of bolognese sauce

You’ll still want mince, and vegetables, but you can skip the stock, passata and herbs too! This is a great way to make a flavoursome family meal, with a little less effort.

Also, using a jar of sauce is perfect for those days when you want to cook from your stockpile and not go to the shops especially for ingredients.

How to make slow cooker spaghetti bolognese for 2 or 4 people

I would suggest following the recipe above and either adding a little more mince and vegetables, or taking a little away. Keep the other quantities the same. You can even just bulk this out with a little more passata and grated carrot if you want to save some money and stretch the meal a little further.

Adapt this to be a quorn spaghetti bolognese in slow cooker or meatless spaghetti bolognese in slow cooker

Just change up the mince! Also, if you don’t consume any animal products then you’ll want to use a stock of your own choice and use a meat product free cheese to top. I personally find that nutritional yeast works nicely sprinkled over the top before serving.

Can you make a slow cooker spaghetti bolognese with crushed tomatoes or garden tomatoes

Yes! If you’re using your own homegrown garden tomatoes then I would suggest you peel the skins off, as they can be a little tough sometimes.

If you’re using crushed tomatoes from a can then just pour these right on in! No prep needed.

You can make this slow cooker spaghetti sauce with sausage or ground turkey

Just change up the 5% beef mince for either ground sausage or ground turkey. This is a great way to have a slightly lighter bolognese, and possibly save some saturated fat in the process too!

ALL of the slow cooker recipes on this website have been cooked using a Ninja Foodi OL750UK, or a previous Ninja multi-cooker model, but you can use ANY slow cooker, as timings should be very similar.

How to make slow cooker spaghetti bolognese:

Note: All calorie information is for demonstration purposes only and is based on the specific uncooked ingredients that I used when creating the recipe.

This is such a simple but wholesome meal. You can use up just about any vegetables that you have languishing at the bottom of your fridge. Frozen vegetables work great too for this recipe.

Products I use when I make slow cooker spaghetti bolognese:

Like this slow cooker spaghetti bolognese recipe? Fancy trying one of my other recipes? Here are some great ones:

Mince pasta bake

Fresh pasta recipe

Pasta sauce recipe

Bacon mac & cheese pasta bake

Slow cooker beef chilli

Beef hotpot prepared in just 15 minutes

Slow cooker chicken nachos with nacho cheese sauce

Pulled pork in the slow cooker

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