chorizo & olive pasta

This Chorizo & Olive pasta isn't very complicated, my homemade recipe cooks up from ingredients we generally always have in our pantry and fridge.

That said it is a firm favourite round here and one that is on our regular rotation. So I thought I'd share it here. I know I'm always looking for inspiration for those quick and easy family dinners. This is a good one for late soccer practice, or if we are eating at different times, and its great made in bulk and reheated.

We buy our cans of tomato in a slab these days from the local Italian greengrocers and usually choose the ones that are prechopped. I find the texture more to my liking than passata and the can size is usually perfect for our needs.

With growing kids I seem to be making larger and larger quantities, in the (vain) hope that there will be a bowl of leftover pasta/curry/pie for my lunch the next day. So this is quite a bit. You could cut down to one can of tomatoes and just use slightly less of everything else and it would be as delicious. So adjust the quantities to suit your gang, or make this as a double batch and freeze some.

Chorizo & Olive pasta

1Tbsp olive oil
1 brown or purple onion chopped finely
1 chorizo sausage sliced (woollies and coles have these in their deli section)
2 cans chopped Italian tomatoes
1 can water
1.5 cups frozen peas
1 cup kalamata olives (I buy big jars of these already depipped, great for salads, stews and nibblies)
1 dessert spoon raw sugar
1 bag pasta 500g (or less but it matches this much sauce) (I like penne with this)
salt, black pepper to taste
shaved parmesan to serve


Put saucepan on high heat, add olive oil.
Add onion, cook 2 minutes, add chorizo and cook till onion translucent, abt 5 minutes.
Add two cans tomato. Add one can of water and about a dessertspoon of sugar.
cook on low for 45 minutes until tomatoes reduce.
Cook pasta.
Five minutes before serving add peas and olives to sauce.
Strain pasta and mix through sauce.
Top with shaved parmesan.

Do you have a favourite pasta sauce recipe? We have pasta at least once a week so it would be nice to try out some new recipes. I've already shared a couple of mine here, Marcella Hazan's simple ricotta, bacon and pea pasta and Hugh Grants macaroni. Both very popular with us.