Bucatini with Porcini Mushroom Ragu
Bucatini pasta tossed with a hearty porcini mushroom ragu sauce. A delicious earthy pasta sauce made from dried porcini mushrooms!

I love a good mushroom ragu and this does not disappoint. Bucatini is tossed with a rich porcini mushroom ragu prepared from dried porcini mushrooms.
Despite a cook time of roughly 1 hour (maximum), this is the type of sauce that tastes like it has been simmering away on the stove for hours.

Unfortunately, fresh porcini mushrooms are near impossible to find in the states, but dried porcinis work just as well in this case and are actually even more concentrated in flavor.
If you can’t find dried porcini mushrooms, substitute with another dried wild mushroom mix. With that said, porcinis will provide the best and most robust flavor for this sauce!

They are so earthy and fragrant. Nothing beats them in my opinion!
For this particular recipe, I recommend chopping the hydrated mushrooms very finely. This enables the mushrooms to almost melt and become one with the sauce. Toss the ragu with bucatini pasta and you have a pretty spectacular meal. Enjoy!

Bucatini with Porcini Mushroom Ragu
Ingredients
- 1 ounce dried porcini mushrooms or combination of dried porcini and wild mushrooms
- ¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
- 1 large yellow onion diced
- 1 small carrot peeled and finely grated
- 2-3 tablespoons finely chopped thyme leaves
- 4 garlic cloves thinly sliced
- ½ cup dry red wine
- 1 (28-ounce) can crushed Italian tomatoes
- kosher salt
- freshly ground black pepper
- 1 lb dried bucatini pasta
- finely grated parmigiano-reggiano cheese for serving
Instructions
- Place the dried mushrooms in a small bowl and cover with just enough boiling water to fully submerge the mushrooms. Allow the mushrooms to sit and hydrate for 15 to 20 minutes. Once hydrated, drain the mushrooms (reserving the mushroom broth for later) and finely chop with a knife. Set aside.
- Heat ¼ cup of extra virgin olive oil in a large heavy-bottomed saucepan or Dutch-oven over medium heat. Add the diced onion and saute for 8 to 10 minutes, stirring ever few minutes, until the onions are very soft and translucent.
- Add the grated carrot and fresh thyme and continue to cook over medium-low heat for an additional 2 to 3 minutes, or until the carrot is very tender. Add the garlic and cook, stirring frequently, for about a minute or until fragrant. Deglaze the pan with the red wine, stirring to scrape up any caramelized bits. Continue to cook until nearly all the red wine has evaporated. Add the crushed tomatoes, chopped hydrated porcini mushrooms, and reserved mushroom broth, stir everything together, and slowly simmer the sauce for 30 to 40 minutes, stirring every so often.
- Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Boil the pasta until al dente and drain (reserving 1 cup of the starchy pasta water). Toss the pasta with the sauce until it coats the strands well, adding a splash or two of pasta water as necessary.
- Serve pasta and top with finely grated parmigiano-reggiano cheese.
49 Comments on “Bucatini with Porcini Mushroom Ragu”
This recipe doesn’t say what do the with the chopped mushrooms or red wine. 😞
Hi Adam! Thank you for bringing this error to my attention. I recently had to manually import a lot of my recipes over to a new website design, and this was a mistake in the transfer process. I have gone back into the recipe and fixed the issue. Appreciate your comment, because this is an older recipe and I wasn’t aware there was an issue on this post until you left a comment.
There are many things I love about this recipe – we’ve made it several times now and we are always so impressed by it – it is a vegan dish without the cheese (who am I kidding – of course we added cheese) and it is so meaty in texture – it is an amazing dish!!! The bucatini noodle is perfect here too (it can be a little messy). We do reserve some of the water the mushrooms soaked in and add that with a little pasta water to add to the sauce. Otherwise, we make it as written – a delicious meal!!!! A great meatless meal option – served with a piece of good quality bread and a simple salad – perfection!!!
This sauce is amazing! I used 2 oz of dried porcini mushrooms instead of 1 and added a can of tomato sauce after it cooled down. Left it sit for a few hours before serving. Adding a can of sauce at the end adds an additional layer of flavor. I also chopped the porcinis in a food processor as they are a little tough to chop by hand.
Hi Laura! Can I substitute fresh porcini for all of the dried? If so how much do you think I should use?
Absolutely! I haven’t made this particular recipe with fresh porcinis (they are just not available in my area), but I would be fairly generous as they will reduce in size dramatically once cooked. I would go by taste! Hopefully that helps!
Hello!! I join the many who eat pasta for breakfast … I AM Italian after all! However, I just purchased fresh porcini mushrooms at my farmers market. How much do you recommend I use? Thank you for your help!!
Yes – I used mixed wild mushrooms,. not just porcini; I felt the sauce was flat and uninteresting
Thanks for your reply! I haven’t made this sauce with wild mushrooms, but there is a HUGE flavor difference between fresh wild mushrooms and dried porcinis–I think that is what happened unfortunately.
I thought this recipe was tasteless and dull; it was certainly not worth the time it took to prep. I have to admit I was very disappointed!!
Hi Joanne! Do you mind being more specific in your criticism of the recipe–constructive criticism is welcome. Did you make the recipe exactly as listed or make any substitutions? Porcinis are incredibly flavorful, so it’s confusing to me that you would find the sauce tasteless?
Laura, this pasta looks wonderful!
Thanks so much Marla!!
That looks like a bowl to feed my soul…any time of the day.
Vegetarian ragu?! Now I really love you. So glad we met this weekend! I hope you had a good trip home.
I have definitely eaten quite a few strange things for “breakfast”. But never pasta. Which just seems ridiculous now, because YUM. Comfort food first thing in the morning – what could be better?!