Bethany's Vegan Kitchen

Penne and meat free pepperoni baked in a marinara sauce, topped with dairy free cheese and more meat free pepperoni slices. I fancied making a bit of a silly, fun recipe this time, and I just enjoy making things that aren’t pizza a bit more like pizza, haha. I used M&S plant kitchen chorizo puppies for this, which worked really well. You can use other mock meats though, it’s up to you

Yield; 4-6 servings Cook time; 45 minutes

You’ll need;

1. One 360g (ish) pack of mock meat sausages
2. Two tablespoons of oil
3. One brown onion finely diced
4. Two cloves of garlic, minced
5. Two tablespoons of tomato puree
6. Two 400g tins of plum tomatoes, blended with a blender/food processor
7. One teaspoon of the following dried herbs; parsley, basil and oregano
8. Salt and black pepper to taste
9. 300g (that’s the dry uncooked weight) pasta, I used penne
10. 175g dairy free cheese, I used a 50/50 mix of Violife Epic Mature and Applewood Smoked Cheddar

Method;

• Start by cooking the sausages according to the instructions on the pack, the chorizo puppies worked really well for this, I fried them in a tablespoon of oil. Once they’re cooked you can remove them from the pan and set them aside to cool, they’re much easier to slice once they’ve cooled off a bit
  
• Now move on to making the sauce. I used the same frying pan that I cooked the chorizo sausages in. Add another tablespoon of oil into the frying pan, once that’s warmed up add in the onion and garlic. Give them five minutes to soften, stirring occasionally
• Next add the tomato puree, blended tomatoes and herbs. Allow the mixture to cook and thicken for around 10-15 minutes. Season to taste with salt and black pepper, you may want to also add a pinch of sugar if the tomatoes are a bit bitter
  
• While the sauce cooks, cook the pasta as per the instructions on the packet. I knocked a couple of minutes off the cooking time, as we’ll be baking the pasta and it will carry on cooking in the oven
• By now the sausages should have cooled off, so you can slice them up
  
• Once the pasta is cooked, drain away all the water. Mix roughly one third of the sliced sausage, the sauce, and the pasta together until everything is well combined. Spoon the mixture into an oven proof dish
  
• Next top the pasta with the cheese, and the remaining two thirds of the sliced sausage. Be sure to press the sausage down into the cheese, this is so the top of the sausage will crisp up a little in the oven, but the pieces won’t dry out
  
• Bake at 200°C/180ºC/400ºF for 15 minutes, allow to stand for five minutes before serving

I thoroughly enjoyed this, it would be perfect served with slices of garlic bread and a crisp green salad