Italian chef shares major pasta mistake people always make when cooking bolognese

Pasta is one of those foods that many of us could eat every day, sometimes even twice a day as it's so versatile and you can serve it with almost anything.

One of the most common pasta dishes to tuck into is spaghetti bolognese, but according to an Italian chef, we've been making it all wrong.

Roberta d'Elia, the head pasta chef at Pasta Evangelists in London has told The Mirror that Brits often make a big mistake when it comes to the pasta portion of the dish and that's because she claims it's not meant to be served with spaghetti at all.

Roberta claims bolognese shouldn't be served with spaghetti (Courtney Pochin)

Roberta, who is originally from Puglia in southern Italy, said: "You might not know but in Italy we have around 250 to 300 different shapes of pasta, it's exactly the same product but for Italians, there is a huge difference between spaghetti and fusilli for instance.

"We know it's the same product but it is important to pair the right pasta with the right sauce. An example of this is spaghetti bolognese.

"The Italians don't really like spaghetti alla bolognese, they would prefer tagliatelle alla bolognese with cheese."

The expert explains that it's all about respecting the region where the dish is from.

"The sauce is from Bologna so we want to pair it with the typical pasta shape of the region, so that's why we would always pair tagliatelle with the bolognese.

"It's to please people from these regions."

The chef shared the importance of using the right shape with the right sauce (stock photo) (Getty Images)

She continued: "We're very serious about shape and this also applies to carbonara as well. Some people want to be more extreme and will pair it with whatever shape they fancy, but let me tell you, it should be bucatini or spaghetti for this sauce.

"Rigatoni alla carbonara is something that we do in Italy as well, that's really nice."

Roberta added that the other crucial mistakes people make with their bolognese are adding mushrooms and beef stock to the dish.

Both of these are branded a big "no-no" by the chef.

"It should be made in a traditional way using different cuts of meat, with a beautiful tomato sauce, and then infused and cooked for hours, but no mushrooms please."

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