Chorizo Pasta

My 5-year-old must ask for this meal 2-3 times a week. I do try and vary mealtimes a little more than that, but his demands are met at least fortnightly, if not weekly!

The recipe is so quick and easy to make, it is packed with the good stuff and is perfect for making the night before when I know we’re going to be back late from an after school club (usually football in our house!) – 10 minutes heating up while the pasta cooks and voila!

Written by Rachel

Kids in the Kitchen

Chorizo – A challenge for little fingers, get your kids to try and peel the skin off the chorizo. This isn’t necessary though will make the chorizo more tender having removed it but may be fun for them to try and also may keep them entertained for a while.

Pasta – Get out the scale and measure how much pasta you need. If each person typically eats 100 grams pasta and there are 4 of you altogether, how many grams is that in total! If they are into this you can have a more fun with the scale by weighing 10 or 20 pieces of pasta and work out how many pieces will feed one person and so on.

Serves:  4
Prep time: 5 minutes
Cooking time: 20-25 minutes

Ingredients

• 1 chorizo ring, sliced
• 1 white onion, chopped
• 1 red onion, chopped
• 1 red pepper, roughly chopped
• 1 orange pepper, roughly chopped
• A handful of mushrooms, chopped in quarters
• 1 small tin sweetcorn, drained
• 1 large jar passata (approx. 680g)
• 400g pasta to serve
• Parmesan to serve, grated

Equipment

• Knife
• Chopping board
• 20cm Copper Base Saucepan
• 26cm Copper Base Sauté pan
• 1 turner
• Cheese grater
• Strainer

Cooking Method

1. Gently fry the sliced chorizo in the sauté pan over a medium heat. There is plenty of oil in the sausage so no need to add any extra.
2. Whilst this cooks, chop the onions, peppers and mushrooms.
3. When the chorizo has started to brown (5-10 minutes), drain about half of the oil from the pan and throw in the chopped vegetables. Fry for about 5 minutes.
4. If you are going to eat immediately turn on the pasta at this point.
5. Once the vegetables have softened, add in the jar of passata and the drained sweetcorn. Cook for a further 10 minutes to allow the flavours to fuse.
6. Drain the pasta and serve topped with Chorizo pasta sauce and a dusting of grated Parmesan.