Easy sausage & tomato pasta

This is a very simple pasta dish that won’t take you long to prepare. It’s one of those dinners that is just an easy crowd pleaser on any night of the week and is super flexible as it can be vegetarian, vegan or meaty!

I’ve kept the ingredient list short and the method straightforward, so it can become one of your back pocket recipes that you can just throw together without referring back here.

Ingredients

Serves 4

• 1 tbsp olive oil

• 6 vegetarian or pork sausages

• 1 large onion, chopped finely

• 1 garlic clove, grated or chopped finely

• 2 x 400g tins of tomatoes

• 1 tsp balsamic or red wine vinegar

• ½ tsp sea salt

• A good grind of black pepper

• A small handful of basil leaves, torn

• A handful grated parmesan

• Your choice of pasta

Method

• First cut the sausages into 2cm thick slices. Defrost thoroughly first if you’re using frozen, if you’re using pork I would squeeze the meat out of the casing and roughly roll into small balls.

• Whatever kind of sausage you’re using, preheat ½ tbsp of olive oil in a large pan and fry the pieces until browned on all sides. This will take about 5-6 minutes for vegetarian sausages and a little longer for meat (check the inside middle temperature is at least 63ºc with a meat thermometer).

• Remove the sausage pieces from the pan and put in a covered bowl. Set aside.

• Add ½ tbsp olive oil to the pan, heat and then put in the onions. Fry on low for about 15 minutes until softened and beginning to brown.

• Then add the garlic and cook for 1 minute, stirring well.

• Next pour in the tomatoes and simmer with the lid on for 20 minutes.

• Break up the tomatoes if they not already chopped, add 1 tsp balsamic vinegar and the sausage pieces. Allow the sauce to bubble for a further 5 minutes (making sure the sausage has heated through properly) and then add the basil leaves, salt and pepper.

• Serve with any kind of pasta you like!

Tip

• I actually didn’t have any basil in when I made this, so don’t worry if it’s missing, the sauce still tastes great!

• Add a blob of mascarpone cheese or crème fraîche to make it creamy, chilli flakes for heat, slices of jarred (so no extra cook time) red pepper for sweetness, spinach leaves for greenery! All these additions would go in for the final 5 minutes with the sausage.

• Make the sauce vegan by leaving out the parmesan and use plant based sausages.

• Meat-eaters could switch sausage for small pieces of crispy bacon.