Mains

Orecchiette Sausage Pasta in Creamy Tomato Sauce

Orecchiette in a creamy tomato sausage sauce. The cup-shaped pasta is a perfect vehicle for this sauce.

Prep10 min

Cook15 min

Total25 min

Serves5

Scale

Units

Ingredients

400 gorecchiette pasta14 oz, or other pasta

1 tbspolive oil

2garlic clovesminced

500 gItalian pork sausages1 lb, meat squeezed out of their casings

¼ cupwhite wineanything not too sweet (sub water)

1 cuptomato passatacalled "tomato puree" in the US

¾ cupcreamheavy/thickened

¾ cupmilkany fat %

¼ cupparmesanfinely grated

1 tspItalian herbs(Note 3

¼ tspred pepper flakes(chilli flakes

¼ tspeach salt and pepper

3 cuppacked kale leavestorn into bite-size pieces (or baby spinach, swiss chard, Tuscan kale, etc.)

Parmesanfor serving

Instructions

1
Bring a large pot of water to the boil and cook pasta according to packet directions MINUS 1 minute. Just before draining, scoop out 1 cup of pasta cooking water and set aside. (Note 4)
2
Heat oil in a very large skillet over high heat. Add garlic and cook for 15 seconds.
3
Add sausage meat and cook, breaking it up as you go, until there are some little golden bits - about 4 minutes.
4
Add wine and cook, scraping the bottom of the skillet to remove the golden bits, and allow wine to evaporate - the winey smell will disappear.
5
Add remaining ingredients except kale. Stir well, bring to simmer then turn stove down to low and simmer gently for 2 minutes to bring all the flavours together.
6
Add pasta and kale. Toss well for 1 minute to coat pasta well with the sauce - it will thicken. If the sauce gets too thick, use the reserved pasta cooking water to loosen it up (Note 4).
7
Serve immediately, garnished with freshly grated parmesan