Beef Ragu in the slow cooker, made with lean ground beef, sausage, onions, carrots, and celery is perfect over pappardelle or your favorite pasta.
My slow cooker recipes are so popular this time of year. I have a delicious slow cooker beef ragu in my Fast and Slow cookbook, made with chunks of beef that mimic short ribs. For this recipe, I wanted to make it with ground beef, which is more economical. I don’t typically like lean ground beef in sauce, but the slow cooker’s low heat makes it so tender you won’t know the difference. Serve it over your favorite pasta, roasted spaghetti squash, or, my favorite… a combination of whole wheat spaghetti and spiralized zucchini. More slow cooker ground beef recipes you may love are this Crock Pot Bolognese, Madison’s Slow Cooker Beef Tacos, and Slow Cooker Picadillo.
“Ragù” is the Italian word for meat sauce, so Bolognese, originally from Bologna, Italy, is a type of ragu. Ragus are typically thick meat sauces.
Using the slow cooker for beef ragu makes most of the cooking hands-off. Start it in the afternoon, and all you have to do right before dinner is boil some pasta. Perfect for a busy weeknight!
You can store this Italian beef ragu in the refrigerator for three or four days and in the freezer for up to 6 months in airtight containers. Thaw the dish in the fridge overnight and reheat in the microwave or on the stove.
Your comments are helpful! If you’ve tried this healthy Slow Cooker Beef Ragu recipe or any other on Skinnytaste, don’t forget to rate the recipe and leave me a comment below. And if you took a photo of it, share it with me on Instagram so I can reshare on my Stories!
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Just made the stove top version – delicious!! Thanks, Gina!!!
This looks and sounds delicious, but we can’t eat beef in our house. Would ground turkey be OK for this? Just wondering if the texture would suffer since the turkey might be a bit tougher in this application?
I was wondering the same Vanessa!
I can’t answer for ST but I make a Greek version of this and use ground turkey all the time.
Wondering the same… beef is so hard to digest… will try with Turkey, and sauté in my IP then slow cook for less cleanup!
Hi, I’m Gina Homolka, a busy mom of two girls, author and recipe developer here at Skinnytaste.com. My food philosophy is to eat seasonal, whole foods and maintain good portion control (everything in moderation!).
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