Giada De Laurentiis' Take On A Classic Italian Dish Uses This Budget-Friendly Beef

Giada De Laurentiis is an Emmy award-winning television personality, known for her roles on Food Network shows like "Everyday Italian" and "Giada at Home." While the Le Cordon Bleu-trained chef specialized in the arena of Italian American fare, that doesn't mean that her tasty recipes are filled with pricey ingredients. In fact, her beef and caramelized onion ragù recipe, which she shared on her food blog, Giadzy, features a reliably cheap cut of meat: chuck roast.

"This dish transforms a humble cut of beef into an elegant and deeply flavorful pasta centerpiece," De Laurentiis writes, describing the dish. "Chuck roast, a budget-friendly cut of beef, becomes meltingly tender after a long braise with Marsala wine, caramelized onions, and aromatic vegetables, resulting in a truly luxurious sauce." It certainly sounds delicious (and inexpensive) to us.

Based on the classic Italian dish known as Pasta Genovese, one of many underrated Italian pasta dishes that deserves more attention, De Laurentiis' beef and caramelized onion ragù brings chuck roast together with onions, garlic, carrots, celery, and salt, accentuated by the added tomato paste, marsala wine, and parmesan. After cooking, the meat is shredded and topped with more parmesan and served over al dente pasta, specifically the unconventional shape known as paccheri.

Giada De Laurentiis' beef and caramelized onion ragù has plenty of similarities to Pasta Genovese, including its use of onions, other vegetables, and tubular pasta. However, unlike De Laurentiis' classic ragù dish, Pasta Genovese does not feature tomatoes or dairy. More often, it includes chunks of meat rather than shredded protein.

Of course, De Laurentiis doesn't just use chuck roast in her beef and caramelized onion ragù. It's featured in a number of her recipes, including her famous Bolognese sauce. On an episode of her new YouTube series, "Everyday Giada," she explained that she preferred the cut since it has "a little bit more fat," which enhances the dish's flavor and keeps it from drying out during cooking.

De Laurentiis' affinity for chuck roast is nothing new. During an episode of "Giada at Home" years ago, she lauded the cut as an inexpensive cut of meat that brings plenty of flavor to dishes while making a pot roast. "It becomes super tender and almost like butter," she shared, "like it just melts in your mouth."