Sausage and Loaded Veg Pasta
This makes a big pan of food, great for those days when you've got a lot of hungry mouths to feed or you just want to gorge on pasta. Personally, I love these kinds of dishes because I can eat loads and there will still be enough left to eat cold for lunch the next day. My best tip for cooking dishes like this is to make sure the veggies are properly cooked - especially the courgettes (zucchini) and mushrooms - so that they're golden and not soggy.
Serves
4-6
Ingredients
- 350g dried pasta (rigatoni works well)
- 1 head of broccoli, cut into florets
- 2 tsp olive oil
- 1 red onion, chopped
- 300g chestnut mushrooms, sliced
- 6 sausages, each cut into 4 pieces
- 2 garlic cloves, crushed
- 2 courgettes, halved lengthways and finely sliced
- 1 carrot (around 150g), grated
- 1 red pepper or 2 roasted red peppers from a jar, chopped
- 400g tin chopped tomatoes
- 1 tbsp dried mixed herbs
- 2 tsp paprika
- Cheddar or Parmesan cheese, grated, to serve
Method
Bring a very large saucepan of salted water to the boil. (At the end, everything is mixed together in the pan and so you do need to use a very large saucepan.) Add the pasta to the pan and boil for six to eight minutes (or two minutes less than given in the packet instructions). Scatter in the broccoli and cook for a further three minutes. Scoop out a mug of the cooking water, set aside, then drain the pasta and broccoli.
Heat the oil in the same pan and fry the onion for around five minutes or until beginning to soften. Stir in the sliced mushrooms and fry for five to eight minutes or until they’ve released their liquid and started to brown.
Tip in the sausage pieces and cook for a couple of minutes until browned. Add the garlic, cook for one minute, then stir in the courgettes, carrot and red pepper. At this point, I cook the veg for a good 10–15 minutes on a medium or medium-low heat and make sure it’s all cooked properly.
Pour in the tinned tomatoes and scatter in the herbs and paprika. Stir to combine and cook for 5 minutes to heat through. Tip in the cooked pasta and broccoli and gently stir everything together. If it feels a little too dry, pour in some of the reserved cooking water – I always pour a little in anyway as it helps bring everything together. Cook for a few minutes just to make sure it’s all hot and then serve. A scattering of cheddar or Parmesan works nicely as a topping.
Make it fancy
Got friends coming round and want to impress? For a pasta bake with a crunchy topping, scatter over some breadcrumbs and grated cheddar and bake in the oven at 180C/160C fan/350F/gas 4 for 25–30 minutes.
