When I started this blog, I wanted it to be a compendium of my favourite recipes and meals that I like to cook at home. That’s why I surprised myself when I realised that after a year of the blog I had not included this sausage and pepper pasta recipe. This is another absolute favourite in my household, sausage and pepper pasta is at least a monthly repeat dinner and also one of the few meals that my husband will cook! This is both testament to its deliciousness and its simplicity given that he can actually be bothered to make it himself, else it tends to be me doing most of the cooking. (Incidentally, this works for us both as I love to cook and he doesn’t. Instead hubby tends to do the cleaning, an arrangement we are both happy with!). Thinking about it, a version of this dish was the first meal my hubby ever cooked me, definitely one worth of a blog entry!

As with most pasta dishes, there is a lot of scope to play around with the ingredients and quantities to taste. In particular, I often throw in some spinach as I always like to add as many veggies to a meal as possible.

Serves 2-3

Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients

Pasta sauce

1 onion, finely chopped

4 cloves garlic, finely chopped

¼ tsp chilli flakes – I usually have some crushed chilli flakes and find a little heat a nice addition, but be careful as these tend to be hot!

1 can of chopped tomatoes

Other ingredients

About 250g dried pasta of your choice. I usually use penne or fusilli, I think this works better than a long-stranded pasta like spaghetti, linguine etc as the sausages and peppers are quite chunky and so it’s easier to eat these with pasta that you can pick up on a fork. Pictured here I’ve used fussilioni which I picked up in Waitrose.

4 sausages, I like Cumberland, but use whatever you like

2 bell peppers, chunkily chopped

A small bunch of fresh parsley, chopped

Parmesan cheese

Olive oil

Salt and pepper to season

Method

1. Add a teaspoon of olive oil to a deep-sided frying pan and fry the sausages until they are nicely browned and mostly cooked through. They don’t need to be fully cooked through as they will be cooked further in the sauce. Remove from the pan and set aside.

2. Wipe out the pan if you find you have dark bits from the sausages. Add another teaspoon of oil to the pan and fry the onions for about 5 minutes until they are softened and starting to gain colour.

3. Add the garlic, chilli flakes and the peppers and fry for a further 5 minutes.

4. Add the diced tomatoes, stir and let bubble away gently.

5. Meanwhile, boil a big pot of salted water and cook your pasta until al dente. Drain and reserve a cup of pasta water.

6. Whilst the pasta is cooking, chop up your sausages into bitesize piece and add to the pasta sauce. Stir and let everything mingle together.  

7. Add the pasta to the pasta sauce and sausages, along with the chopped parsley. Stir so the pasta is nicely coated. If the dish is a little dry, then add in some of the reserved pasta water to loosen things up.

8. Taste and season to your preference with salt and pepper.

9. Dish up and serve with some more fresh parsley on top along with a generous sprinkling of grated parmesan.