Beef Mushroom Rigatoni

This Beef and Mushroom Rigatoni recipe makes a huge batch of from-scratch pasta sauce. Freeze it in portions and you always have some on hand on to drench your favorite Rigatoni in.

It’s dinner time.

(Seriously, how is it already dinner time again?!)

You know the drill: The baby starts screaming, pretty much as the clock strikes 5pm. How could it be any different?

As soon as you manage to wrangle the screaming baby into her carrier and start hopping up and down with her like a maniac, your toddler decides it’s time to start asking for food.

„Mama, can we have spaghetti? With the yummy sauce from the jar? Pleeease?”

You want to say yes with every bit of your hopping self.

Even if it means getting yourself and the kids dressed and out to the shop, just for a jar of spaghetti sauce.

But you’re well aware there’s not much goodness in a jar of pasta sauce. Heck, you need a university degree to understand the label! For a jar of sauce?!

So you decide you’re going to make spaghetti sauce all from scratch. As soon as you announce this to your toddler, she’s a screaming mess. Because „Mama, but I can eat the sauce from the jar!”

Yes, dear, we know you can eat it. But it doesn’t mean you should.

And then all of a sudden you’re required to balance a still-screaming baby (despite the ventilation being cranked up all the way), a carrot-washing toddler flooding the kitchen and burning bits of onion at the bottom of your pot.

By the time your husband gets home you’re just about ready to hand him the kids and head out for ice cream all by yourself.

Your solution? Make a gigantic batch of beef mushroom rigatoni sauce. And then freeze it in portions, ready to thaw out.

But you’re scared of ending up with a tasteless, watery blob of defrosted sauce. Like all the times you tried making and freezing spaghetti sauce before.

Here’s your relief: You can scratch all those memories. If you cook the initial sauce the right way, you will not end up with plates of pasta swimming around in water:

You need to add as much flavor and texture as you can to your batch of sauce, because otherwise you will end up with a big pile of defrosted sadness on your plate.

Brown the beef until all the meats’ liquid has cooked away, instead of draining it.

Cook the sauce with a closed lid for as long as you can, but then take off the lid and cook it until it’s quite thick. That way, if you end up with some condensation in your frozen sauce, it will not turn out watery after reheating.

When you get all of that right, you’re only missing one vital piece: An absolutely delicious recipe.

Good thing I have this amazing Beef and Mushroom Rigatoni recipe waiting for you, right?!

P.S: You can of course use other pasta shapes than Rigatoni. But let me share this mama-secret with you: They cut easily into thirds. Those pasta rings are easy for toddlers to spear onto forks. They make a much, much, much smaller mess than spaghetti. And you get to eat real, adult-shaped pasta for once.

P.P.S: For a super easy slow cooker pasta sauce, try this Slow Cooker Italian Sausage Pasta Sauce.

Beef and Mushroom Rigatoni first posted on Food Fanatic.