Succulent Spiced 'Sausage' Pasta
This is one of those recipes we keep coming back to on a weeknight when we want something that feels properly indulgent but comes together in about 25 minutes. The spiced plant-based sausage gets crumbled into the pan and crisps up beautifully, and combined with those jammy sun dried tomatoes and the warmth of fennel and black pepper, it tastes like something you'd order at a really good Italian restaurant. It's bold, hearty, and genuinely satisfying in a way that'll surprise you. Trust us, once you've made this one, it's going straight into the regular rotation.
Before You Start
- Mortar & pestle
- Large pot
- Colander
- Large frying pan
Ingredients
- 1 tbsp sun-dried tomato oil - from the jar
- 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 1 tbsp fennel seeds
- 1 tbsp peppercorn - more to serve
- 1 tbsp Nooch - more to serve
- 4 tbsp sun-dried tomato pesto
- 6 plant-based cumberland sausages
- 6 sun-dried tomatoes
- 250g pasta - of your choice- we like strozzapreti
Method
Prepare the ingredients
- Slice open the sausages and remove the “skin”
- Finely slice the sun dried tomatoes
- Put the fennel seeds and peppercorns in the mortar and grind them into a powder with the pestle
Prepare the pasta
- Add a big pinch of salt to a big pot of boiling water, add the pasta and cook according to the package instructions (approx 9 - 11 mins, depending on the shape of the pasta)
Prepare the sauce
- Warm the oils in the frying pan over high heat
- Crumble the sausage into pan and stir for 4 minutes
- Add the ground pepper and fennel seeds to the pan and stir for 1 minute
- Add the sun dried tomatoes and stir for 3 minutes
- Add the nooch and sun dried tomato pesto and stir for 1 minute
Finish and serve
- Pick the basil leaves and shred
- Spoon a ladleful of pasta water into the frying pan, stir to combine and turn off the heat
- Drain the pasta with a colander and immediately transfer the pasta to the frying pan
- Sprinkle half the basil over the pasta, stir the pasta into the sauce until well covered
- Transfer the pasta into serving bowls, season with nooch and pepper, garnish with the remaining basil and serve immediately
Tips & Variations
- Nail the sausage crisp: Don't rush this step. Let the crumbled sausage sit in the pan without stirring too much so it gets those golden, slightly crispy edges. That's where the magic is.
- Sun dried tomatoes matter: Go for the ones packed in oil if you can. They're richer and more jammy, and a little of that oil in the pan adds a brilliant depth to the sauce.
- Pasta shape counts: We love this with rigatoni or penne because the sauce gets inside the tubes, but honestly any short pasta works well here. Just cook it until it still has a tiny bit of bite.
Why This Works
The trick is grinding the fennel seeds and peppercorns fresh in a mortar and pestle. It sounds like a small thing but it totally transforms the sauce, giving it that deep, aromatic warmth you'd expect from a proper Italian sausage ragu. Crumbling the sausage out of its casing rather than slicing it means you get all those lovely crispy, caramelised bits throughout the pasta, which is where all the flavour lives.