Chicken Spaghetti Bolognese

A pasta with bolognese sauce is one of my favorite meals, so it’s risky for me to tamper with the sauce ingredients, but this chicken bolognese sauce has earned a new special place in my heart (and my stomach!). This is the lighter version of one of my favorite meals, replacing the beef with chicken, but keeping the meat as the central ingredient of the sauce. This is a meat sauce with tomato, not a tomato sauce with meat.

What is Chicken Bolognese Made of?

There are a few ingredients added to this chicken bolognese to distinguish it from its better known parent sauce. Not only is the beef replaced by chicken, but I also add a little fennel to the onion and celery. Fennel has a delicate licorice flavor, but when cooked it becomes even fainter in prominence, adding just enough interest to this sauce to keep you guessing. If you can’t find fennel at your grocery store, you can leave it out and bump up the onion and celery a little, but I do think you should try to include it at least once. I also add milk to this bolognese sauce, but that is in keeping with tradition. The milk helps to tenderize the chicken. The chicken, by the way is not just ground chicken, but chicken sausage, which is a great way to add even more flavor and seasoning to this sauce.

What Chicken Sausage to Use for Chicken Bolognese

Of course, the best chicken sausage to use for this chicken bolognese sauce is your favorite chicken sausage. If you can find one that has fennel seed in it, even better. Whatever you choose, you should be buying fresh (not cooked) chicken sausage for this recipe. After all, it will be cooked with the sauce.

Is Chicken Bolognese Healthy?

That’s a loaded question. The answer to whether chicken bolognese is “healthy” or not really depends on how you define the word “healthy”. Chicken bolognese is lighter in calories than beef bolognese merely by the fact that you’re using chicken instead of beef, so it is lower in calories and lower in fat. If fat is something that you’re trying to control, you could reduce or even eliminate the olive oil in the recipe, but olive oil is a good-for-you oil, so… you really have to decide if this is a healthy meal for you. All I can say is that it is lighter than beef bolognese.

How to Serve Chicken Bolognese

I like to toss the pasta with a little of the bolognese sauce first and then top it with more, but you can also just ladle the sauce over plain pasta if you prefer. Either way works. Remember to warm your bowls to keep the meal as hot as possible for as long as possible. Sprinkle a little more parsley on the top and let people grate fresh Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese over their pasta.

Easy Pasta Sauce

This chicken bolognese has earned its spot in my preferred meals not only because of its delicious flavor and lighter nature, but because it is so easy and quick to prepare. It requires a little chopping, but once the sauce is simmering, it’s only 20 minutes before it’s really to turn out over pasta. You can also freeze this sauce and just reheat it for dinner. That makes it a weeknight meal and an easy pasta sauce that delivers bang for its buck.

Chicken Bolognese