The recipe everyone is doing wrong on TikTok
The umami-bomb trend has, for the past three months, been telling people to put Marmite in their Bolognese. The advice is sound. The dose, in most of the videos, is wrong. The cooking time, in most of the videos, is also wrong. So here is the recipe written down properly, so you can stop guessing.
This serves four, takes about an hour and a half, and is significantly better the next day. It is not, technically, a Bolognese. The actual Bolognese has milk and white wine and no garlic. This is an English weeknight ragu that calls itself a Bolognese because that is what people order when they go out. I am at peace with that.
What you need
- 500g beef mince, ideally 15 per cent fat. Lower-fat mince produces a drier, less flavoured sauce.
- 1 onion, finely chopped
- 2 cloves garlic, crushed
- 1 carrot, finely chopped (optional, but helpful for sweetness)
- 1 stick celery, finely chopped (also optional, same reason)
- 1 tbsp tomato puree
- 1 x 400g tin chopped tomatoes
- 250ml beef stock, or water
- 150ml red wine, or extra stock
- 1 tsp Marmite (this is the dose, and yes, only one teaspoon)
- 1 bay leaf
- Salt and black pepper
- Olive oil
- 400g dried pasta of your choice
What to do
Heat a generous splash of olive oil in a heavy-bottomed pan over medium heat. Brown the mince in batches, breaking it up with a wooden spoon. Do not crowd the pan. You want a deep brown crust on the meat, not steamed grey mince. This step matters. Set the browned mince aside in a bowl.
In the same pan, add a little more oil if needed, and sweat the onion, carrot, and celery for about ten minutes until soft and starting to caramelise. Add the garlic and cook for another minute. Stir in the tomato puree and let it cook for two minutes, until it darkens slightly.
Return the mince to the pan. Pour in the wine and let it bubble for two or three minutes. Add the chopped tomatoes, the stock, the bay leaf, and the teaspoon of Marmite. Stir to dissolve the Marmite completely. This is important. The Marmite needs to dissolve into the liquid; you should not be able to see streaks of it in the sauce.
Bring to a simmer, then drop the heat to low. Cook, uncovered, for one hour, stirring every ten minutes or so. The sauce should reduce by about a third. Season with salt and black pepper at the end, not before, because the Marmite already brings a fair amount of salt and you might not need much more.
Cook the pasta in well-salted water according to the packet. Drain, reserving a cup of pasta water. Toss the pasta in the sauce, loosening with a little of the reserved water if needed, and serve.
The Marmite, specifically
One teaspoon. For four people. That is the dose.
If you use two teaspoons, the Marmite will start to dominate the sauce and the dish will taste like Marmite ragu rather than Bolognese with a savoury kicker. If you use half a teaspoon, you might as well not have bothered. One teaspoon, dissolved properly in the liquid, is the sweet spot.
Also: the Marmite goes in with the liquid, not with the meat. If you stir it directly into the browned mince it will not dissolve evenly and you will end up with pockets of intense flavour rather than a smooth depth across the sauce. This is the bit most of the TikTok videos skip.
What it tastes like
A Bolognese with more depth than the cooking time should produce. The Marmite does the work of an extra hour of simmering with bones. The sauce reads first as a normal ragu, then a beat later as something a bit deeper, then back to ragu. If you have done it right, no single bite should taste of Marmite. Every bite should be slightly more interesting than it would otherwise be.
That is what the technique is for. Stop using more than one teaspoon.
