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Italian Cuisine Expert and Food Blogger
Guido Pedrelli
Guido Pedrelli, the mastermind behind Nonna Box, has honed his culinary expertise for decades, inspired by family feasts in Emilia-Romagna. Mentored by his restaurateur nonna, he mastered Italian classics and furthered his skills with professional culinary studies in desserts and gelato making from Mec3. Today, he shares this rich legacy and authentic recipes through Nonna Box.
Genovese sauce is a smooth blend of slow-cooked onions and pieces of meat and is considered one of the great inventions of the Neapolitan kitchen because, contrary to what its name would suggest, this traditional Italian sauce comes from Naples and not Genoa!
This delicious dish traditionally had no tomatoes added, bearing witness to the fact that there was superb cooking before the arrival of tomatoes to Italy hundreds of years ago before the discovery of the New World. We have left the tomato puree optional so you can either make it the traditional way with lots of onions or add a touch of tomato.
Keep reading to learn how to make this Genovese sauce recipe that is a slow-cooked dish from the 16th Century like the private chefs of long ago.
Finely chop the onions, carrots, and celery. You can use a food processor if you prefer.
Remove the excess fat from the beef and chop into several large pieces.
Heat the olive oil for a couple of minutes in a heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium heat, then add all the onions and saute until soft. Next add the beef, the carrots and the celery and cook until the meat browns.
Now season with salt and pepper, cover the pan or pot and cook over a low flame, stirring occasionally for about 2 hours, occasionally breaking up the beef with a wooden spoon. If it gets too dry you can add a little water or some tomato sauce.
When the meat is well cooked, pour in the white wine and allow the sauce to simmer gently for another hour. The onions should have a creamy texture and the meat should be shredded and very soft.
Fill a large pot with water and bring to a boil. Add salt and cook the pasta until al dente, following the package instructions.
Set aside a small cup of pasta cooking water and then drain the pasta. Add the pasta to the sauce, stirring well. You can add the pasta water you set aside if needed it to coat the pasta thoroughly.
Serve hot. You can add freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano or Parmesan sprinkled on top, if desired.
The onions should release enough water to thoroughly cook the meat, but if you see that it is too dry you can simply add a small amount of water or tomato sauce so that the beef cooks properly.
Some recipes call for smashing the onions after cooking, but we find that they will break down completely by themselves if they are cooked for a long enough period of time. If your onions are still intact, then you haven’t cooked the dish long enough.
Try other Italian sauces:
Other Neapolitan pasta recipes:
Genovese sauce can be cooled in the pan and then transferred to an airtight container and stored in the refrigerator for up to 3 days. We recommend storing just the sauce by itself and not the pasta. If you have leftover pasta, you can store it in a separate container for up to 3 days.
Yes, you can reheat Genovese sauce. Add the leftover Genovese sauce to a large saucepan and reheat over low heat for several minutes until hot. Cook fresh pasta or reheat pasta by cooking it in boiling water for one minute. Then combine the pasta and sauce and serve with a dusting of Parmesan cheese.
Some people say that in the 16th century, the private chefs of the Genovese merchants living in Naples made this dish.
In time merchants returned to their own homes in Genoa, but many of the chefs remained since leaving the beautiful city simply wasn’t an option. “They set up shops or stands selling food to the public, many of whom didn’t have kitchens in their tiny, one-room apartments (bassi). The sauce that was to become known as la Genovese was their specialty“.
As with all things in Naples, there are many versions of the truth. Genovese merchants, there certainly were.
However, the Spanish Viceroys were in charge of matters in the 16th century and Naples wasn’t doing that well; the Viceroys were far more interested in themselves than in the welfare of anyone around them.
Furthermore, the rich Genovese were very rich and some doubt that a chef would choose to remain in a city so that he could cook on the street. They obviously haven’t been to Naples.
The early recipes for La Genovese are different to the modern ones, and it’s to be expected; it would frightfully boring if food didn’t evolve at all. In 1837, Ippolito Cavalcanti gives a recipe in his Cucina casarinola co la lengua Napolitana (Home Cooking in the Neapolitan Language) & it’s essentially a French glacede viande, a meat stock reduction. At that stage then, it hadn’t become an onion sauce.
It contained the French mirepoix, though: equal amounts of diced onions, carrots and celery to flavor the rich sauce. In this recipe, the onions took over with the carrots and celery really just a token compared to the onions. In Naples meat is pricey which is why cheaper cuts were for flavoring the onions, not vice-versa.
Often beef wasn’t used but rather scraps of salami and ham, a piece of prosciutto rind or a bone. Some people even began to make the sauce without any meat. Maccheroni with a sauce of only onions, a finta Genovese (fake Genovese), became a fast day-dish which it is to this day.
Genovese is my most favorite dish my Nonna would make. She never put celery in hers, otherwise this recipe is very similar. I think of her every time I make it.
Ciao Andi, yes it’s delicious I agree!