This sausage meatball pasta is a simple recipe that always goes down well with all of our family. At the end of the day, it is just pasta and sauce with sausages, but we try to dress it up a bit. We mix up the pasta we use, squeeze the sausages out to make meatballs, and add balsamic vinegar, which gives the dish depth of flavour.
For me, balsamic is the key to this sausage meatball pasta. If anything I am cooking is missing something in the flavour department, it can usually be solved by adding salt, oil, or vinegar. However, when it comes to anything tomato-based, it is always the vinegar that I reach for first. This is because it reduces down and adds a really rich flavour.
We always mix up the pasta too and use at least two different types in the dish. When we shop, we let the kids choose what pastas to buy. These days there is a wide variety of shapes and colours. Even these slight involvements in the food processor can help solidify our kids’ positive relationship with food. No one wants to be in a situation where their child only eats ‘curly’ pasta! Check out the easy recipe for sausage meatball pasta below.
Meaty Sausage Meatball Pasta With Balsamic Vinegar
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon cooking oil
- 1 medium yellow onion - red, white or a bunch or spring
- 2 cloves garlic
- ½ handful carrots - chopped
- ½ handful peas - chopped
- 12 links Italian sausage (American name for Pork Sausage with Fennel Seeds) - minced
- 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
- 800 grams tomatoes - chopped
- 400 grams spaghetti
- 1 cup Parmesan cheese - to top
- 8 leaves basil - to top
Instructions
- Cook pasta as per the instruction on the packet. Most kinds of pasta will take 8 to 12 minutes which should be about how long the sausage sauce takes to prepare. When the pasta is al dente, drain and leave to stand until required at stage 8. It doesn’t matter if the pasta starts to cool; it will be reintroduced to the hot sauce!
- In a frying pan, saute the onions and garlic in the oil until the onions soften.
- Whilst the onions are cooking, squeeze the meat out of the sausages into balls; you should get 3 balls per sausage. Bin the skins.
- Add the sausage meatballs to the pan and cook until they start to get some colour.
- Add the chopped vegetables and continue to cook until there is some colour on the vegetables too.
- Add the balsamic vinegar and turn everything over in the pan until the balsamic has reduced to almost nothing.
- Add the tomatoes and cook for about 4 to 5 minutes (or until your pasta is cooked).
- Add your drained pasta into the large frying pan and turn through the sausages and sauce.
- Serve and top with freshly grated or shaved parmesan and fresh basil.