Italian Sausage, Spinach & Pea Spaghetti

Dear Reader, I urge you to have this Italian sausage pasta recipe up your sleeve in case of emergency, malaise or just plain exhaustion. You don't need takeaway with this wonderful Italian sausage and spinach pasta. You are literally 10 minutes away from a delicious spaghetti for two (or three)!

The thing that I love about this sausage pasta is that it makes use of fresh or frozen ingredients. I dug out the Italian sausages from the freezer and the spinach and peas came in my vege box although you could of course use frozen of these too.

Another reason why I like this dish is that the sauce isn't made with a lot of oil nor is there any cream and it keeps well over the next couple of days. With lot of tomato based sauces the sauce gets soaked up into the pasta whereas this didn't.

Feel free to use any shape of pasta you have too because it is very versatile. Shapes that can capture peas and mince are particularly good like shells. It's just that I love spaghetti so I always it in my pantry.

My friend Monica recently put a poll on her Instagram stories asking people what their least favourite pasta shape was. Monica and I are food twins and we like pretty much exactly the same foods but we have never discussed pasta shapes.

I responded with my least liked pasta shape:

"SPIRALS"

"OMG I knew you wouldn't let me down! I hate spirals too!" said Monica immediately. And then we went into a whole dialogue about why spirals suck (they always fall apart and they're always in pasta salad and I hate pasta salad).

And it turned out lots of people hate spirals too but the worst pasta shape offender was penne! I mean I don't hate penne but I don't love it. And if you think I'm being a pasta snob I love good old basic spaghetti. In this dish if you please.

So tell me Dear Reader, which is your least favourite pasta shape? Do you have a favourite one?

Italian Sausage, Spinach & Pea Spaghetti

An Original Recipe by Lorraine Elliott

Preparation time: 2 minutes

Cooking time: 8 minutes

Serves 2 hearty servings

• 250g/8.8ozs. spaghetti
• Oil for frying
• 300g/10.6ozs. Italian sausages, skins removed
• 2 cloves garlic, peeled and thinly sliced
• 3 cups English or baby spinach leaves
• 1/2 cup peas
• 1/2 cup wine or chicken stock
• 1 cup/250ml/8.8flozs pasta water (reserved from cooking the pasta)
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Chilli flakes (optional)
• Parmesan or pecorino to serve

Step 1 - Start the spaghetti onto boil in plenty of salted, boiling water. While the spaghetti is cooking, heat a frying pan and add 2 tablespoons of oil and add sausages and cook making sure to break the clumps of meat up (I use a potato masher). Add garlic when almost cooked through and fry for another minute. Add the spinach, peas and wine and cook until spinach wilts and peas are cooked, around 3-4 minutes. Add half a cup of the pasta water and season with salt and pepper.

Step 2 - By now the pasta should be cooked. Drain the water and toss the spaghetti in coating it with the sauce adding more pasta water if needed. Serve with cheese, chilli flakes and an extra grate of pepper.