Orecchiette Sausage Pasta In Creamy Tomato Sauce

Decadent? Yes. Have salad tomorrow!

Orecchiette Sausage Pasta

Don’t you hate it when you twirl an enormous mound of spaghetti on your fork, only to find that you’ve just got pasta and no toppings?? Even more annoying is when you bring it up to your mouth and loose strands slap around your mouth, causing pasta sauce to splatter all over your face – and your white top. Such are the challenges of our pasta lovin’ life. Thankfully, the Italians came up with a solution – little cup shaped pastas called “orecchiette” which act as little scoops to hold pasta sauce. How clever is that?! 🙌🏻

Truth be told, I do not know if orecchiette pasta was invented to solve the pasta-slapping/sauce splattering/toppingless spaghetti problem. I just know that it’s wildly practical – and we should all use it more often!! 😂 (PS And you can, in fact, use it for virtually any pasta recipe. Orecchiette Bolognese, anyone??) Today, I’m sharing a flavour loaded, decadent creamy tomato sausage pasta sauce that I deem to be orecchiette worthy. The little bits of sausage nestled in those little cups, blanketed in that creamy sauce … mmmm! It’s so good it should be illegal! “Orecchiette” means “ear” in Italian which refers to the ear-like shape of this type of pasta.

What you need for Orecchiette Sausage Pasta

Here’s what you need:

Italian sausages – the better the sausage, the better the sauce! Here in Australia, Italian sausages only come in link form (as pictured above), but squeezing the meat out is cinch to do. In fact, anyone with a lifetime of cooking sausages knows full well the meat wants to come out of the casings! Kale – to break up the richness of the sauce. Spinach works great here too; Tomato Passata or puree – this thickens the sauce as well as providing lovely tomato flavour to cut through the richness of the cream and sausage. Tomato Passata, called tomato puree in the US, is just pure, plain tomato that’s pureed and strained – nowadays found in everyday supermarkets in Australia. But don’t fret if you can’t find it – crushed tomato or even tomato paste can be used in a cinch (quantities in recipe); Parmesan – for a flavour boost! Cream and milk – cream provides the richness, milk thins out the sauce more whilst still keeping the sauce that lovely pink colour! Garlic – because very few of my recipes don’t have garlic; Italian herbs – staying on theme with the sausages. Just use a store bought premix. Not the end of the world if you don’t use dried herbs in this, we get loads of flavour from the sausages; and Red pepper flakes (chilli flakes) – for a hint of warmth. Optional!

How to make Orecchiette Sausage Pasta

Nothing unique about the making part! The sausage pasta sauce comes together in the same time the orecchiette pasta takes to cook (12 minutes), making this a great quick dinner recipe.

KEY TIP: Avoid the cheap sausages that are a uniform pink colour – they are loaded with fillers. Look for sausages with specks of meat and white fat, as pictured above.

On the side

I’d love to be able to tell you that this is a complete meal…but it’s a wee bit light on the greens! 😂 So add a fresh salad on the side to round it out – here are a few suggestions: You know something? I just realised that I forgot to mention another very important characteristic of orecchiette pasta: YOU CAN EAT IT WITH A SPOON Which means it falls into a very important category of food I call Couch Food, being food you can eat with a spoon without taking your eyes off the TV. Or trashy novel. Or a rag-mag. Just something that requires minimal brainpower so you can concentrate on really savouring Every. Single. Bite! – Nagi x PS I suppose one could eat this while reading something a little more intellectual, but I just think my brain would implode with all that delicious going on in my mouth as well as having to think while reading? My brain just doesn’t have the bandwidth for that.😇