How do you make nice, rich low salt Bolognese sauce

[yarncakes]

Need to have a low salt diet due to hypertension. I usually buy jars but obviously going to make my own from now on. I have attempted to make it and it was disgusting. I used passata, lightly fried garlic, basil, oregano, and sugar with a dash of Worcestershire sauce. It honestly tasted awfully sour and I already added so much sugar yet still tasted awful. Any one have a rich Bolognese sauce recipe that's similar to dolmio but not high in salt?

Red wine and a long simmer make all the difference I think. Yum!

Oven roast mince, use 10% fat for flavour. Roast on hot oven until browned.

Sauté lots of red onions for about 10 mins to concentrate flavour and caramelise the sugars. Fry off good amount of garlic in same pan.
Add good quality passata, then I use 'low salt' but you can leave this out. Add fresh ground blank pepper and a handful fresh basil leaves and a small handful of dried oregano. I put in a table spoon or two of tomato purée.

Add the roasted mince, cover, turn heat down and leave for an hour. Taste and decide if it needs longer to concentrate the flavour.

I serve with freshly grate Parmesan.

I start mine on the hob to brown the meat and veg, and then it goes in the oven, low and slow.
Definitely agree with the red wine, I prefer chopped tomatoes to passata but whichever you get, get good ones. Also a squirt of tomato purée. You would probably benefit from using a soffritto base too to add to the flavour.

Fry a diced onion in olive oil for a few minutes
Add the mince and brown
Add a tin of tomato purée
Add a glass of red wine
Add two tins of tomatoes or equivalent of Passata
One tin of water
Two tea spoons of dried Italian herbs
Simmer on the lowest heat for around 3 or 4 hours

I'm from an Italian family and this is how we make it.

I use a full jar of sun dried tomato paste in mine, mmm. Plenty garlic and oregano.

I saute red onions and garlic- I love this flavour with passata, oregano and basil. Carrot also adds to the flavour but I'm personally not keen. Ground pepper to taste, occasionally red wine if I've not drunk it all. Add browned mince and long, low simmer!

Sauté finely chopped up carrot, onion and celery (soffrito base) until soft. Add in the mince and brown. Then add in tinned chopped tomatoes, herbs (I used dried oregano and bay leaves), tomato paste and a 1-2 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar for sweetness. Use red wine at this point too if you want. Bring to a simmer on the hob and then stick in the oven (in an ovenproof pot) for 1.5 hours. Needs a long, slow cook as others have said.

I've no idea what dolmio tastes like...
mine is well-sautéed onion, garlic, very finely diced carrot and sometimes celery, quite often also a diced red pepper (not traditional but we like it). If I've time I brown the mince separately. A desert spoonful or so of flour mixed well in then either two tins of chopped tomatoes or one tin and some tomato purée, and some water.
Oregano and a bit of thyme, good long simmer.

I used to add some low salt marigold powder and just add salt to my serving (it's DH who has hypertension) but he seems to have got things in better balance now so now I do usually add a knorr veg stock cube and/or diced gammon, browned with the mince. Just the lean part - non lardy lardons. that might be more sodium than you want.

There's 30g of sugar in a jar of dolmio, which is probably why it tasted sour to you (I'd be really surprised if you added that much, even if it felt like you were adding a lot). A longer cooking time will take some of the acidity off, as would using fresh rather than tinned tomatoes, but ultimately if you want food to taste like ready-made food you need to add amounts of salt and sugar that most home cooks wouldn't dream of putting in theirs - I guess if the only concern is salt then there isn't actually anything to stop you putting in what will feel like an excess of sugar?

I think you will need to let your taste adjust. A no salt sauce with a lot of sugar in it doesn't sound nice at all. The well-sautéed (to the point of caramelisation) onions and other veg suggested, not just garlic, will add plenty enough sweetness and much better depth of flavour without acidity.

I agree that putting in all that sugar doesn't sound nice/palatable to me, but I suspect you, like me, would find dolmio sickly anyway, Errol, but the OP obviously likes it if she's trying to recreate it!

I fry 1-2 cloves garlic, then as it's browning add a tin of chopped tomatoes, a tablespoon on tomatoe puree, and a tablespoon or two of red wine if I have it, plus a teaspoon each of dried oregano and basil, which makes a good tomato sauce/puzza base.

Nat's 'Quarantine sauce' (warning lots of swearing, but also very funny) is really a good sauce, made with fresh tomato

I am veggie but have recently found that adding a few teaspoons of balsamic vinegar to the usual mix of onions, tinned tomatoes, garlic and basil makes it a bit richer

I think you need a soffrito base (onion, celery, carrot, all finely diced) softened and then brown the mince add a bit of garlic, tinned tomatoes (not passata, it will be too watery), maybe an OXO low salt beef stock cube if that's okay, some red wine, and oregano if you want, a couple of bay leaves. Then, and this is important, leave it to cook for a really long time. I cook mine in a slow cooker for 10 hours and then give it 20 mins on the stove to reduce it, but you could probably do it for 90 mins minimum on the stove at home.

Salt is a flavour enhancer so you need to compensate with a good base like the soffrito.

Having had a look, dolmio has 29g of sugar in a 500g jar Vs 18 in the equivalent weight of tinned tomatoes, so it's probably got about 10g of agreed sugar. Onion gets sweeter if you fry it off so I really think that will help with the balance.

Chop up 2 carrots, 1 parsnip, 1 onion, 6-8 mushrooms, 1 courgette and one red/yellow or orange pepper

Put in a pan with a small amount of water. Keep checking to make sure it doesn't boil dry. Cook until soft

Blend with 1 jar of passata

Fry off mince, add blended sauce, tin of tomatoes, half a tube of tomato puree, black pepper & mixed herbs and a few dashes of red wine. Leave to simmer for an hour.

DO NOT ADD SUGAR

Or salt

Parsnip??
Soffritto, fried until soft. Brown the mince. Add tinned tomatoes, low salt stock cube, pinch of sugar, wine (red or white). Simmer for as long as you can bear. Maybe some tomato puree if needed. I don't use herbs as I can't bear dried ones.

@Cookerhood parsnip is a total game changer in a veg rich tomato sauce. One of those accidental finds when lobbing in whatever veg is in the fridge but it is the best.

Leave out the Worcester sauce for a start. It has no place in bolognese. Finely chopped carrot adds a sweetness, and frying the onions until they caramelise before you add the garlic.

Garlic burns easily so don't add it first.

Soffrito. If you can't be bothered you can but it frozen.

Toms, teaspoon of sugar, oregano. Add garlic but towards the end. Fry up some basil stalks and add the leaves on finishing.

Oh and add some marmite! Umami.

Saute finely diced celery, garlic, carrot and onion - about three tall sticks of celery, three to five carrots, two onions, and at least half a head of garlic (added when the others are softened).

Minced beef - brown in the pan with the sofrito.

Add about half a mug of milk, simmer gently until milk is absorbed. This tenderises the beef.

Add dry red or dry white wine (not sweet wine) and simmer for a while until it has evaporated significantly, then crushed tinned tomatoes to cover the meat/veg.

Add a pinch of nutmeg, about 2 tsp basil and oregano, and a good dash of black pepper. Stir until combined.

Bring to the boil.

Turn down the heat and simmer for about three hours, topping up with water if it appears to dry out.

In the end some fats should have accumulated at the surface and you can skim this off.

Butter your pasta and toss in the sauce.

Grate parmesan over each serving. This should add significant flavour and replace salt.

Simmer very gently, uncovered, for the three hours.

Slow roast tomatoes, I buy plum ones by the kilo from Lidl, slice them in half with a couple of onions, garlic, pepper & olive oil, roast for at least an hour on 140-160, then blend either in a food processor or a stick blender. I do enough to freeze 3 or 4 portions, 4 kg of tomatoes, 1 large onion per kg of tomatoes, a couple of bulbs of garlic. Brown your mince & a couple of chopped onions, stock cubes then add tomato mix, tomato puree, wine, I use any medium sweet rose or red I have bits left over, oregano, Italian seasoning & leave to cook on low for at least an hour or put in slow cooker on low setting for 8 hours. I have sneaked veg in the roasted tomatoes before, carrot, courgette are ones I have used to get ds to eat more. The tomato mix is also good for chilli or even on its own with pasta.

Sofritto, add meat and brown (don't move too much), red wine, reduce, tomato purée (no tinned tomatoes, no passata) add stock ladle by ladle as you slowly simmer for at least two hours.