Pasta dishes may or may not be worthwhile to order at a restaurant, and it’s usually hit or miss for us because we make pasta quite often at home! One thing’s for sure - pasta dishes gives restaurants the highest profit margin and when we are able to do, we do our best to order other items on the menu that we can’t cook at home and avoid pastas completely.

If you’ve only had store-bought sauce and pasta noodles at home, this recipe might inspire you to branch out and try to make something restaurant-worthy at home:

Prep time: 10 minutes

Cook time: 30 minutes

Serves: 2

Ingredients

Homemade sausage

• 300g minced pork

• 1 tsp smoked paprika

• 1.5 tsp salt

• 0.5 tsp cayenne pepper

• 1 tsp onion powder

• 1 tsp garlic powder

• 1 tsp dried Ialian herbs

• black pepper

Pasta

• 150g orecchiette

• swiss brown mushrooms, quartered

• salt

• dried chilli flakes

• extra virgin olive oil (optional)

Method

• In a medium to large sized bowl, add all ingredients to minced pork and give it a good mix

• Cling wrap and let it marinade in fridge for at least 6-8 hours to overnight

• Once the sausage had at least 6 hours in the fridge, you can start on the pasta dish, or using it for anything you wish - breakfast, pizza topping, meatballs, etc

• Heat up a large pan and add mushrooms to the hot pan without oil. This allows for the mushrooms to char/brown a little which adds extra flavour. You may season it gently with salt, not too much. Set aside once mushrooms are fully cooked.

• At the same time, boil pasta in another pot. Do not add salt because the other ingredients are flavourful enough! If you must add, add lesser than the usual amount you use to boil the pasta.

• Then to the same pan, add a little bit of olive oil then sausage to the pan. Be careful not to stir it too much in the beginning. We prefer to spread it out as an even layer in the pan and letting the sausage form a bit of a crust before touching it.

• Once the sausage is about 95% done, add the cooked pasta to the pan, along with some pasta water. You can start by adding about 80ml first, then gradually add more if you feel the pan is too dry. If you like the end result to be dry and less silky, you don’t have to add anymore pasta water. Adjust as you please!

• Add the mushrooms back into the pan and sauté for another minute before serving! We like serving this dish together with dried chilli flakes.

Conclusion

Pasta dishes can get boring and lack a good balance of protein, fiber and carbs. I feel this is a good all-in-one pasta recipe idea that covers all bases for health & nutrition! I feel really happy to share our homemade sausage recipe because it’s not only reserved for this dish, feel free to taste it and use it in any way you please! It’s a game-changer and you’ll no longer have to buy those ultra-processed hot dogs anymore.

Shop our groceries and kitchen in this recipe:

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