Vegan “Chorizo” & Red Pepper Penne

Meat free “chorizo” with red pepper, onion and garlic, in a rich, mildly spiced tomato sauce. I chose to serve this with penne, but you could use any pasta you like, spaghetti would work really well too. In regards to the “chorizo” I used Sainsbury’s Plant Pioneers. You can also get Wicked Kitchen vegan chorizo style sausages from Tesco, and Plant Kitchen chorizo puppies from M&S or online from Ocado. Just click or tap the underlined links to check them out

Yield; Four servings Cook time; 30 minutes

You’ll need;

One tablespoon of oil
One small brown onion, diced
One red pepper, deseeded and diced
Two cloves of garlic, minced
280g vegan chorizo style sausages
One 400g tin of plum tomatoes
200g passata
Spices – one teaspoon of smoked paprika and half a teaspoon of cayenne pepper
300g penne (this is the dry weight)
Salt to taste

Method;

Start by removing the skins from the sausages, as we won’t be needing this. Once the skin is removed, just set the sausage “meat” aside
Next, heat the oil in a large frying pan over a medium heat. Once it’s warmed up, add the onion, pepper and garlic. Give them around ten minutes to cook, stirring every now and then
Next add in the sausage and break them up (I used a potato masher to do this). Give them another ten minutes to cook, stirring every now and then. If you notice the sausage sticking, just add a splash of water and that should do the trick
Now to add the spices and tomatoes. Firstly add the spices and a good pinch of salt, give them a good mix through. Then after they’ve been cooking for a couple of minutes, blend the plum tomatoes until smooth (I just used a stick blender) and add those. Finally add the passata and give everything a good mix to combine
All you need to do now is allow it to cook for another ten minutes, or until the sauce thickens. I boiled the pasta while the sauce was thickening, to cut down on the cooking time. Once the sauce has thickened, add the drained pasta, give it a good mix and then serve