Spicy chorizo pasta bake

This dish is so incredibly simple that I can’t believe I haven’t made it more often. I love chorizo, as a real meat-eater it’s one of my favourites, and it’s so versatile. This meal is quick, pretty cheap and really, really easy.

I’ve made it for both Suze and Bryan now and they both liked it. It’s got a great ROI in terms of effort to taste. And yes—I did just say ROI.


Finished dish

Ingredients

To serve two hungry people you need:

  • A ring of chorizo (sliced)
  • Approx. 250g penne pasta
  • One medium onion (diced)
  • One tin of chopped tomatoes
  • Tomato purée
  • Chopped, fresh basil
  • One slice of white bread in crumbs
  • A generous amount of grated Cheddar cheese to top
  • Hot chilli powder

Photo of ingredients


Cooking

The cooking of this dish couldn’t be simpler…

  1. Heat a small amount of olive oil in a frying pan.
  2. Once heated, fry the chorizo and onion together for a couple of minutes.
  3. Pour in the chopped tomatoes and add basil and as much chilli powder as you desire (I like it hot).
  4. Set this simmering in the frying pan, start heating a big pan of water for the pasta and set a timer for seven minutes.
  5. After seven minutes, add the pasta to the now boiling water and set a timer for 8 minutes.
  6. Grab a beer.
  7. For the rest of the 8 minutes sip your beer, keep stirring the chorizo and check the heat of the chilli—you may want to adjust the spice accordingly.
  8. As well as checking for spice, add tomato purée as necessary to keep the sauce nice and thick—you don’t want it to dry out!
  9. With about two minutes left on the timer, place your casserole dish to an oven set at 180°C.
  10. Once the two minutes are up, drain the pasta, add it to the chorizo and tomato sauce and stir, remove the warmed dish from the oven and move everything from the frying pan into there.
  11. Coat the casserole dish of pasta/sauce mix evenly with breadcrumbs and then sprinkle the cheese on top of that.
  12. Put the dish in the oven for 15 minutes at 180°C.
  13. Serve on heated plates with some warm, crusty bread.
  14. Enjoy!

Finished dish

One Response to Spicy chorizo pasta bake

  1. Simon said on August 2, 2011 at 9:06 am

    Cheers Harry – this worked a treat and was uber simple. I also appreciated the beverage suggestion which was well timed!