Sausage and Pea Pasta
Italian pork sausages browned until the fat renders and the casing crisps, then simmered in a quick tomato-cream sauce with peas and finished with parmesan. This is the kind of pasta that feels like a restaurant dish but comes together in under 30 minutes on a weeknight. Rigatoni's ridged tubes hold the sauce inside and out — every forkful pulls a bit of everything.
Ingredients
- 400 grigatoni
- 500 gItalian pork sausages, casings removed
- 2 tbspolive oil
- 1 medium onion
- 4 garlic cloves
- 2 tbsptomato paste
- 400 gcanned crushed tomatoes
- 100 mlheavy cream
- 200 gfrozen peas
- ½ tspdried chili flakes
- 60 gParmesan
- salt and black pepper to taste
- fresh basil to serve
Method
- Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Salt it generously — it should taste like mild sea water. Cook the rigatoni 1–2 minutes less than the package instructions (you'll finish it in the sauce). Reserve 150 ml of pasta water before draining.
- While the water heats, warm the olive oil in a wide, deep pan over medium-high heat. Add the sausage meat and press it into a single layer. Let it sit untouched for 2 minutes to develop a proper crust, then break into rough pieces with a wooden spoon. Cook until deeply browned, another 3–4 minutes. The browning matters — pale sausage means a pale sauce.
- Push the sausage to one side. Add the onion to the empty part of the pan and cook 3–4 minutes until soft. Add the garlic and chili flakes, cook 1 minute. Then stir in the tomato paste and cook it for 2 minutes, stirring — this caramelizes the paste and removes the raw tomato taste.
- Pour in the crushed tomatoes, stir to combine, and simmer on medium-low heat for 8–10 minutes until the sauce thickens slightly. Stir in the cream and peas. Simmer 2 more minutes until the peas are just cooked through. Taste and adjust salt and pepper.
- Add the drained rigatoni to the sauce. Toss over medium heat for 1–2 minutes, adding pasta water a splash at a time until the sauce coats every piece of pasta and looks glossy, not dry. The starch from the pasta water binds the sauce and gives it that restaurant texture.
- Remove from heat. Add the parmesan and toss quickly. Serve immediately in warm bowls with more parmesan and fresh basil. The pasta waits for no one — it thickens as it sits.
FAQ
Italian pork sausages — especially those seasoned with fennel — are the classic choice and give the most balanced flavor with the tomato and cream sauce. But the recipe works with any good-quality fresh sausage: spicy Calabrian, chorizo (removed from casings), or even chicken sausage for a lighter version. Avoid pre-cooked smoked sausages — they don't release fat the same way and skip the browning stage that builds most of the sauce's flavor.
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Comments (1)
Finish cooking the rigatoni in the sauce, not in the water. Those last 2 minutes of simmering together create a bond between grain and sauce that plating separately never achieves.