Are Coffee Grounds the Secret to Perfect Pasta Sauce?

Plenty of food pairings sound downright nuts until you finally give them a go (if you haven’t tried peanut butter and bacon, you must!). So when the Internet went bonkers because a British supermarket, Sainsbury’s, suggested customers add instant coffee to their spaghetti Bolognese, we decided we had to test it out.

Can everyone else see this? Am I having an episode? pic.twitter.com/O9RTkdJqJL

— Patrick Smith (@psmith) September 6, 2015

Coffee lovers generally swear by their favorite type for everything from brewing to baking, and I personally rely on grounds. But the recipe called for instant. I suspected bold, brewed coffee would deepen the dish’s flavor, so I tried it with both types of java.


I made a veggie version of the traditionally meaty sauce, and the instant coffee didn’t do much, other than maybe making it all a tad richer than it would have been without. But the batch made with stove top-brewed coffee had a touch of bitter flavor that let the sweetness of the carrot and onion shine. (I brew coffee close to espresso strength, and I added ¼ cup to my recipe.) Call me bonkers, but I’d be willing to make coffee a staple of spaghetti nights in my house–as long as it’s brewed.

Use this recipe to try it for yourself, and check out Sainsbury’s original video below.

via <a href=”https://metro.co.uk/2015/09/09/we-put-instant-coffee-in-our-spaghetti-bolognese-so-you-dont-have-to-5382221/” target=”blank”>Metro.co.uk_