It’s quite comical to me that December’s Christmas music describes cold, snowy days, yet the winter months after the holiday music is turned off are the ones when the weather is truly frightful. While some people may treat January as a reset month after a holiday of heavy food, lots of sweets, and their fair share of eggnog, I can’t imagine the dreary, freezing month without warm comfort food—and lots of it.
When the sun sets before five o’clock, you can’t blame me for wanting a big bowl of soup or plate of pasta while I curl up on the couch, light my favorite candle, and turn on the latest episode of “The Traitors.”
I’m not picky when it comes to a comfort meal, but there are some traits that turn a recipe into a “must make.” So, a recipe gets bonus points if it doesn’t require a lot of time to prep (extra bonus for minimal chopping), can be made in one pot (aka only a few dishes to wash), and won’t cost extra for a laundry list of non-pantry-staple ingredients.
Giada de Laurentiis recently shared a pasta recipe on her Giadzy site that checks all those boxes. Giada’s Beef and Caramelized Onion Ragù may sound fancy—and it looks restaurant-worthy, too—but the sauce practically cooks itself. Plus, the only ingredient you may not already have is the meat—and Giada picks a budget-friendly chuck roast as the star of the dish.
How To Make Giada’s Beef and Caramelized Onion Ragù
Giada says the key ingredient in this one-pot pasta dish, which is inspired by pasta genovese, is patience. And she’s right, as it’s an otherwise simple recipe made with a roast, caramelized onions, tomato paste, marsala wine, a few spices, and chopped up celery and carrots for some sneaky veggies.
Once the onions are caramelized and the meat is browned, you just have to let everything marry together for a flavorful sauce with melt-in-your-mouth beef.
To make the delicious sauce, you’ll sear pieces of a salted chuck roast until it develops a golden brown crust, then remove it from the pot. In the same pot, you’ll add sliced onions and salt, and allow them to caramelize with the meat drippings.
Once the onions are browned, you’ll add garlic, chopped carrots and celery (I give them a whir in the food processor for added ease), and salt, and let the veggies soften. Next, you’ll add the tomato paste and let it caramelize and deepen in flavor for a few minutes. Lastly, the bay leaf, marsala wine, water, and a Parmesan rind go into the pot, along with the seared chuck roast pieces, for a gentle, covered simmer of about one hour and 45 minutes.
After the first simmer, you’ll stir the sauce, then replace the lid slightly askew to allow it to breathe and simmer again for 45 minutes. Once cooked and the bay leaf and Parmesan rind are discarded, shred the meat and add the cooked pasta of your choice (Giada uses paccheri), 1/2 cup of reserved pasta water, and grated Parmesan cheese.
My gas oven has a pretty strong simmer, so I cut the cooking time in half—or else I’d be left with all meat and no liquid. I used rigatoni noodles for a similar tube shape as paccheri and served the dish topped with extra Parmesan cheese.
I made this pasta for a dinner party with my friends and they all thought I spent hours in the kitchen cooking up the sauce. Little did they know, just 20 minutes of prep time led to a restaurant-quality dish that cooked while I prepped the rest of the house.
You don’t need to save Giada’s ragù for a special occasion, though. It does take a bit of time to cook, so it might not be the perfect weeknight dinner, but it’s a delicious Sunday sauce and makes great leftovers for meal prep for the rest of the week.
Dining and Cooking