Playing flavors and textures is something I try to do regularly. It helps me develop recipes for my cookbooks and it also keeps my family excited to come to the table when I yell “Dinner!” That is exactly the place where this recipes came from. Miso Bolognese is a riff on spaghetti and meat sauce leveled up with flavors of coconut milk and miso paste.

My family bought half a cow this year. Which means a whole lot of ground beef. Yes we got several fun cuts of steak, but a whole heck of a lot ground beef. So scouring the internet came up with this interesting combination of flavors and inspired me to play with the idea. If you aren’t familiar with Miso paste, it is an amazing flavor (great for stir-fry, ramens, and fried rices). It is a fermented soy bean paste that can be flavored with salt, seaweed, and sometimes rice or barley.
When you want to bring new flavors to your dinner table, it is always a good idea to find a familiar set up. That’s why I went with pasta and meat sauce for this trial. The flavor is out of this world good. The velvety sauce from the combination of miso paste and coconut milk is heavenly. Make sure that you get full-fat coconut milk for this recipe. You need it to have the full body of the coconut milk fat to build the sauce.
For this I went with regular spaghetti pasta, but you could definitely use a different pasta. It wouldn’t have to long pasta either, you could do an elbow or shell and it would taste great.
Now Let’s Get Cookin’!
Miso Bolognese
Ingredients
- 3 tbsp Oil
- 3 Carrots fine diced
- 3 Celery Stalks fine dinced
- 1 Medium Yellow Onion fine diced
- 4 Garlic Cloves minced
- 1 tsp Salt
- 1 tsp Pepper
- 2 lb Ground Beef
- 2 cup Beef Broth
- ¼ cup Sherry Wine Vinegar
- ¾ cup Miso Paste
- 2 cup Coconut Milk full-fat
- 2 tbsp Cornstarch
- 1½ lb Spaghetti
- 1 tbsp Sesame Seeds
Instructions
- Start water boil for pasta.
- In a large saute pan, over medium high heat, add oil, onion, carrots, celery, garlic, salt and pepper. Saute for 5 minutes. Add ground beef. Cook, crumble and combine with vegetable mixture. Continue to cook until no longer pink.
- In a bowl, combine broth, sherry, coconut milk and miso paste. Add to beef mixture and stir to combine. Reduce heat to medium and let simmer while pasta is cooking.
- Add pasta to boiling water and cook as directed on the package. Drain in colander and rinse with cool water.
- In the last five minutes of the pasta cook time, remove ½ cup of liquid to a small cup. Whisk cornstarch into hot liquid. Return to pan and stir to combine. Let continue to simmer until pasta is ready.
- Serve a portion of pasta in a shallow bowl and ladle miso Bolognese over the top. Sprinkle with sesame seeds
Estelle Forrest’s self-published first cookbook – Homemade on a Weeknight: A Family Cookbook – was created after a lot of playing around in the kitchen. You can purchase your own copy here:
AVAILABLE IN PRINT OR KINDLE eBOOK VERSIONS
Estelle self-published a second cookbook – Burgers on a Weeknight – recently. It has over 60 delicious burger creations! You can purchase your own copy here:
AVAILABLE IN PRINT OR KINDLE eBOOK VERSIONS
Don’t miss new recipes from Homemade on a Weeknight – subscribe and get an email with every new post!
We purchased half of a pig one year – the meat was the best we’d ever had! Thanks for sharing at the What’s for Dinner party. Have a fabulous week!