Easy Sausage Ragu

This Easy Sausage Ragu recipe has become one of my go-to recipes over the past few years, and a recipe I honestly can’t do without. It’s the most common pasta recipe for me to be making for dinner, and I really hope you all love the rich sauce, creamy depth and hit of refreshing lemon, rosemary and chilli as much as I do!

How I came up with this recipe

Each week I try to cook something new. Mostly this is because I love exploring new recipes, but this is also to help give me ideas for recipes to develop in the future. Usually this is a recipe that has peaked my interest in some way, with the idea that I’ll take a small something away from it and then move on. However, sometimes, but only sometimes I try a recipe that, once I’ve done tweaking it, is something that makes it into our weekly rotation as something we enjoy regularly. This is the case with a sausage ragu recipe I found in issue of BBC Good Food, which I’ve played around with to make a wonderfully, deceptively rich and satisfying weeknight pasta supper. Why use two pans to make a sauce when you can just as easily use one?

A lot of my recipes start this way: simplifying a recipe I’ve followed filled with unnecessary steps to still deliver on flavour, and this one really is a keeper for it’s sheer versatility.

Choosing the best sausages

For this ragu, choose the best quality pork sausages you can afford, preferably from your favourite butcher. I’ve made this ragu with so many different types of sausages over the years, and quality really does count. I like Field and Flower’s Everyday Farmhouse Sausages (I’m a brand ambassador but I loved these sausages way before we started working together) and if you have to get them from a supermarket, Porky Whites are pretty decent too. If you want to add sausages with a bit of flavour in them, Pork and Fennel flavoured sausages work really well here. Also, if you have a good Italian deli near you semi-cured Italian sausages, either plain or with fennel or rosemary (those slightly smaller, really intense pink ones) substitute one of the regular pork sausages for it for an even better ragu. Just one though, otherwise the flavour will be too overwhelming!

Tinned Tomatoes

Not all tinned tomatoes are created equal, and I’ve used everything from the cheapest Costco bulk buy chopped tomatoes in this recipe, to fancy imported Italian ones. This ragu will always ben delicious regardless of which tomatoes you buy, but I’ve had best results making this ragu with either Mutti’s Whole Plum Tomatoes (lightly crushed in my hands over the pan before being added along with their juices) or their ‘Polpa’ Finely Chopped Tomatoes.

Frequently Asked Questions

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Easy Sausage Ragu

• Author: Rachel Phipps
• Prep Time: 5 minutes
• Cook Time: 35 minutes
• Total Time: 40 minutes
• Yield: Serves 2
• Category: Dinner
• Cuisine: Italian

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Description

This easy and surprisingly rich sausage ragu is delicious stirred through chunky pasta shapes before being finished with a generous showering of freshly grated parmesan.

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Ingredients

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• 1 Onion
• 1 1/2 tbsp Light Olive Oil
• Sea Salt
• 2 Sprigs Rosemary
• 2 Garlic Cloves, crushed
• 1/4 tsp Dried Chilli Flakes
• 3 Pork Sausages
• 1 x 400g (14 oz) Tin Tomatoes
• 200g (7 oz) Penne or Rigatoni Pasta Shapes
• Freshly Ground Black Pepper
• 5 tbsp Milk
• Zest of 1/2 Lemon

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Instructions

1. Peel and finely chop the onion. Heat the oil in a medium large saucepan over a medium heat, and gently fry the onions with a generous pinch of sea salt until they’re soft, and only just starting to brown.
2. Finely chop the needles of the rosemary sprigs, and add them to the pan along with the crushed garlic and the chilli flakes. Fry for a further minute, before adding the meat from the sausages, skins removed.
3. Fry the sausage for about 5 minutes, breaking it up with a wooden spoon as it starts to fry. Keep going until the sausage has started to brown; don’t worry if you think things are burning and sticking to the rest of the pan, all these delicious brown bits will become part of the sauce adding a lovely flavour.
4. Add the tomatoes and turn the heat down to low. Scrape all the brown bits from the bottom of the pan into the sauce, and leave it to simmer, blipping away, uncovered, for 20 minutes.
5. Meanwhile, cook the pasta in a pan of salted water as per the packets instructions.
6. Measure the milk into the tin the tomatoes came in, and swill it around to pick up any lovely residual tomato juices. Add it to the sauce along with the lemon zest. Season the sauce to taste with more salt and a generous amount of black pepper.
7. Drain the pasta well and stir it into the sauce before serving in warm bowls with lots of parmesan and a bit more black pepper.

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