So day 394 of bunkering down . . . just kidding. But it feels like it, dammit!
Here is an easy comfort food recipe sure to make your tummy smile. We need all the smiles we can get! 🙂 This pasta has mild Italian sausage with roasted garlic and onion in a light tomato sauce, and it was yummy!
Sausage and Roasted Garlic Pasta
- 1 lb mild Italian sausage
- 4 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 1 head of garlic, roasted
- 1 medium yellow onion, chopped
- 1 15 oz. can of diced tomatoes, (or 2 -3 fresh tomatoes, diced)
- Pasta — shells, rigatoni, penne, (something short that holds your meat sauce)
- fresh basil to taste, or dry basil, (to taste (2 – 3 leaves roughly chopped, or 1/4 to 1/2 tsp. dried))
- Salt and pepper, (to taste)
- 1/2 cup freshly grated parmigiano cheese, (or more — depending on how much cheese you like.)
- Ground red pepper flakes, (if you'd like your meat sauce to be a little spicier.)
- Preheat oven to 400°. Peel papery part away from garlic. Cut the top off of the head of garlic – you want to be sure all the cloves have a little bit of the top trimmed away. Drizzle with some of the olive oil, wrap in foil. Roast in the oven for 30 minutes.
- Remove garlic from oven, open the foil, and let it cool until you can squeeze each clove from the head. Mash the cloves with a fork to form a paste.
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While your garlic is cooling, chop your onions and grate the parmigiano cheese. How much? You know your family!
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Put 2 – 3 tablespoons of olive oil in a large skillet over medium high heat.
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Start heating your pasta water (you can always lower the heat and bring it back to boiling when you are ready to cook the pasta).
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Sauté the onion until soft, add the roasted garlic paste, cook an additional minute. Add the mild Italian sausage and cook until lightly brown, about 10 minutes.
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Add the can of diced tomatoes and cook 10 minutes.
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Add your basil, salt, and pepper and cook for an additional 5 minutes. Taste your sauce and adjust seasoning.
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Heavy, dried pastas like rigatoni will take 9 to 12 minutes to cook, so you can start it before your sauce is done. Taste the pasta when it's close to done to be sure it's ready. Drain the pasta.
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In a large dish or bowl, combine the pasta, some of the cheese, and your sauce. Toss well. When serving, sprinkle additional cheese over the top.
This could serve 6 to 8 people, depending on appetites, how much meat sauce you want on your pasta, and sides you might be serving.
Leftovers? I like to save my sauce by itself. I hate flabby leftover pasta, and would rather cook a new batch for the leftover sauce.
What kind of pasta should you use? Something that holds the meat sauce — like shells, or rigatoni, campanelle. This time I got mezzi rigatoni, which I have never seen or used before. But you know, in these days of take what you can get at the grocery store, who’s gonna be picky?
