Bolognese French Fries with Burrata
A big pile of crispy crinkle French fries topped with melted mozzarella cheese, meaty bolognese sauce, and so much creamy burrata cheese! This is a dream snack for the Italian American kid in me. I even used sausage instead of plan pork to kick this bolognese up a notch! It was the perfect topping for these french fries. It’s like chili cheese fries, but the Italian version!
The idea for this recipe
I always have recipe ideas spinning around in my brain and this was one that appeared out of nowhere but when it came I had to drop everything and make it immediately. I already had some sauce in the freezer but I wanted this to be the meatiest almost chili-like bolognese ever so I decided to make some fresh for these French fries! At the last minute, Georgina suggested I put burrata on top and I think it honestly made the recipe!
Make the bolognese sauce
Any good bolognese starts with browning the meat and veggies really well. Most recipes say to brown ground beef but I don’t think many people truly take the time to brown brown it. I mentioned that I typically wouldn’t put sausage in my bolognese but I think it really worked as a French fries topping.
After the sausage and then the ground beef brown up, add the veggies and guess what? Brown them too! Then you add the garlic and tomato paste. It is a very important step to treat the tomato paste as if it was a veggie and saute it in the pan.
Blend the bolognese
After the tomato paste, add the meat back to the pan along with some stock and herbs. Let it simmer for a couple hours. This might seem like a weird step, but to get the sauce a perfect consistency, I have found the best way is to use a hand blender! Pulse the sauce until all the meat is broken down to the tiny little bits you expect from a good bolognese. This bolognese should turn out a bit thicker than you would want for pasta, but it is perfect for the French fries. If you need to thin it out a bit, you could add some more cream or stock, or even some water.
Prep the French Fries
I use frozen crinkle fries for most of my recipes. I like making french fries from scratch too, but I think if you are getting frozen fries, as long as you get crinkle fries and cook them right they will serve their purpose and be delicious. Making great homemade fries is a pretty involved process. When I make them I like to just eat them immediately with a little ketchup and mayo. If you want to do homemade fries for this, I like this recipe.
The crinkle fries are the best frozen fry because they crisp up nice. The shape helps them not stick to the pan. Plus the crinkle helps the bolognese get all up in the nooks and crannies of the french fries! Sounds like a win win win to me. I like to toss the fries in some oil and salt before cooking. Then I cook them about 25 degrees hotter than what the package says.
After you bake the fries, put them in the serving dish and top with a ton of mozzarella. Broil to melt and brown the cheese.
Top the french fries with bolognese
After the fries come out of the oven with that melty cheese, smother them in the bolognese sauce!
Serving the bolognese French fries with burrata
Honestly the mozzarella and bolognese was probably enough to make these french fries amazing, but around here “enough” is never enough, we always need too much! Plop that big old ball of burrata on top of the bolognese and sprinkle the parsley everywhere.
At this point I like to just put out some plates and forks and let everyone go to town.
This plate of fries is incredible! The bolognese is so so good! It’s like chili, but way better if I am being honest. The way I cooked the bolognese made it more thick than it would be on pasta. That way it really clings to the french fries.
The fries that dreams are made of.
Twists on Bolognese French Fries
You could make these bolognese French fries with your favorite tomato sauce recipe, you don’t need to follow mine! It could also be good with your favorite type of fries. You don’t need to agree with my aggressive bias towards crinkle fries.
You could also do it with homemade fries. I linked a recipe above, but you could use your favorite recipe too. I also really think some parmesan cheese would be great on top. You could do a little truffle in the bolognese too if you want to get wild.
One of my favorite categories of recipe is putting stuff on top of fried potatoes. If you also love this you can grab my recipe for mac and cheese fries, corned beef gravy fries, banh mi tater tots, or mapo tofu tots! I even write a whole book about putting stuff on top of tater tots.
Bolognese French Fries
Equipment
Ingredients
Bolognese Sauce
- 1/4 cup olive oil split into 4 tablespoons
- 1/2 pound spicy Italian sausage
- 1/2 pound ground beef
- 1 small onion diced
- 2 ribs celery diced
- 1 carrot diced
- 5 cloves garlic minced
- 8 ounces tomato paste
- 2 cup stock chicken, beef or garlic
- 1/4 cup fresh parsley plus more for garnish
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- 1/4 cup cream
Fries
- 32 oz frozen crinkle fries
- 8 oz grated mozzarella
- fresh parsley
- 1 ball burrata
Instructions
Bolognese
- In a large frying pan over high heat, add a tablespoon of olive oil and the sausage. Cook on high heat to brown as you break up the pieces. Make sure you really brown it well!
- Remove the sausage from the pan and add the next bit of olive oil. Repeat with the ground beef, breaking it up in the pan and browning it well.
- Remove the beef and do the onion, carrot, and celery next with more olive oil. Again, be sure to brown the veggies well.
- After they reduce a ton in size and are browning around the edges, add in the garlic. Cook only 2 minutes, then add the remaining olive oil and the tomato paste. Cook about 5 minutes on high, stirring constantly to fully coat the veggies in the tomato paste. The paste should appear to be frying in the oil.
- Add the meats back into the pan and add in the broth, parsley, oregano, and sugar. Reduce heat to low and simmer for about 2 hours. Stir it every 15 minutes or so, It will reduce to a thick sauce.
- Add in the cream. Use a hand blender and pulse the sauce to make sure the meat is all broken down into really small uniform pieces. Make sure to not overblend the sauce.
- The sauce will be thick. Depending on how thick, you could add a splash of cream, water, or broth to thin it a little. You want it to be fairly thick for the french fries, but if you are using it on pasta you could thin it a bit.
Fries
- Preheat the oven 25 degrees hotter than what it says on the french fry packaging. Toss the fries with a drizzle of olive oil and some salt and spread them out on the baking sheet. Toss them ounce on the sheet with a spatula about 60% of the way through cooking.
- Preheat oven to broil on high. Pile the fries in the pan or oven safe dish you plan to serve them in. Cover with mozzarella. Broil until the cheese is melted and brown.
- Smother the fries in the bolognese sauce, then top with the burrata. Top with parsley and serve.