Hong Kong Style Spaghetti Bolognese

Hong Kong style Spaghetti Bolognese (肉醬意粉 or yuk jeung yi fun in Cantonese) is classic Hong Kong café dish. It’s has a rich, savoury and slightly sweet meat sauce on spaghetti and baked with melted cheese on top.

Before you start dissing on fusion food and say that this is just another weird fusion pasta… hear me out. Since Hong Kong used to be a British colony, restaurants that were opened during that time created many Western-Chinese fusion dishes. One of the popular ones you may have heard of is the Hong Kong style French toast, egg tart and milk tea. This spaghetti dish is also one of them.

To cater to the Chinese palette, Asian ingredients such as soy sauce and sometimes oyster sauce are added to give more flavour to the dish. Ketchup is also added to make the sauce sweeter.

Hong Kong style spaghetti Bolognese can be found in many cha chaan teng (local diners) and in large Hong Kong fast-food restaurant chains such as Maxims and Café de Coral.

My mom would make this easy spaghetti dish quite often when I was a primary school kid, and I get so excited to eat it during lunch break. Since this was my childhood food, I prefer this over an authentic Italian spaghetti Bolognese (sorry!).

Oh by the way, this recipe takes less than 30 minutes to make!

ingredients for making Hong Kong style Spaghetti Bolognese:

• 2 servings spaghetti pasta
• 300g minced pork or beef (or both)
• 1-2 medium tomatoes (or 1 large)
• 1/2 carrot, chopped into cubes
• 1 stalk celery, diced
• 1/2 red onion, diced
• 3 tbsp concentrated tomato paste
• 200ml chicken broth
• 100ml water
• 1 tbsp cornstarch
• 2 tbsp water
• 100g cheddar cheese (topping)

sauce ingredients:

• 2 tbsp ketchup
• 1 tbsp light soy sauce
• 2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tsp dark soy sauce
• 1 tsp sugar
• 2 bay leaf

ingredient substitutes:

• Ground meat – you can use any type of minced meat you prefer. I’ve seen many cha chaan teng (local diners) in Hong Kong use both minced pork and beef, but you can choose to use either one.
• Pasta – This dish usually calls for spaghetti pasta, but you can definitely use whichever pasta you prefer.

steps to make Hong Kong style spaghetti bolognese:

1. Prepare your ingredients by chopping carrots, red onions, celery and tomatoes.
2. Add your pasta to salted boiling water and cook your pasta according to package instructions, minus 1-2 minutes until al dente.
3. Heat oil in a frying pan. On high heat, add your minced meat and cook until 70-80% cooked.
4. Add chopped carrots, red onions and celery. Stir-fry for a minute, then add tomato paste. Before combining the tomato paste with the vegetables, first sauté the paste for about a minute to bring out flavour.
5. Add chicken stock and water. Bring it to a boil, then add tomatoes, sauce ingredients and bay leaf. Cover with a lid and simmer the Bolognese sauce for 10 minutes on medium heat.
6. After 10 minutes, add a cornstarch slurry (cornstarch + water), bring the sauce to a boil until it becomes creamy and thick. Add spaghetti pasta and mix.
7. The melty cheese is optional, but if you want, add your pasta to a baking dish and sprinkle a generous amount of cheese. Bake at 200˚C/ 392˚F for 5 minutes or until the cheese is melty and golden brown. Enjoy!

more classic Hong Kong recipes:

• Singapore stir-fried vermicelli
• Sweet and sour pork
• Baked pork chop rice

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