This penne pasta with sausage, potatoes and peppers recipe makes a hearty pasta inspired by the Spanish ‘poor man’s potatoes’, a rustic home-style dish of sausage, potatoes, bell peppers (capsicums), and onions fried in extra virgin olive oil and garlic, seasoned with salt and pepper, and sprinkled with fresh flat-leaf parsley and grated Parmigiano Reggiano.
If you made and enjoyed my recipe for ‘poor man’s potatoes’ – a traditional dish from Southern Spain of fried potatoes, capsicums and onions cooked in olive oil and garlic, seasoned with little else but good quality sea salt and cracked black pepper, and showered with fresh flat-leaf parsley; one of those dishes that make even better leftovers – you’re going to love this soul-nourishing pasta dish.
Like a lot of recipes I create and share here, this penne pasta with sausage, potatoes and peppers was the result of getting creative with leftovers – in this case leftover ‘poor man’s potatoes’. Now I make that rustic dish just so I can make this penne pasta with sausage, potatoes, capsicums, and onions.
It’s not only one of our best pasta recipes, it’s one of our best recipes with potatoes. It’s a recipe that makes a deliciously hearty vegetarian pasta if you leave out the sausages. Although juicy fatty sausages really make the dish, you can use whatever sausages you have in the fridge. I love herby Italian-style sausages, but a fat Spanish chorizo gives the pasta a nice kick of heat.
This dish is next in our series of easy pastas, which has included recipes for canned tuna pasta with scallions, capers and fresh herbs, asparagus, mushrooms and bacon gnocchi, a creamy tomato pasta sauce with gnocchi, my cherry tomato feta pasta recipe, a canned sardine pasta with gremolata and pangrattato, mac and cheese with caramelised shallots and crispy bacon, and bacon and mushroom pasta.
I’ll tell you more about this recipe for penne pasta with sausage, potatoes and peppers below, and share a few tips to making this hearty pasta inspired by Spanish poor man’s potatoes.
Penne Pasta with Sausage, Potatoes and Peppers Recipe
Terence and I had never done a lot of meal planning, let alone prepping ahead of meals – unless we were having a dinner party and Terence was cooking up a restaurant quality multi-course tasting menu, which he used to do when we lived in Sydney, and then in Abu Dhabi and Dubai. The dinner party days!
Partly because we’ve worked from home for so many years, so we’ve had more time and flexibility, plus no kids to get to after-school activities or sports – or we worked from apartment rentals during the seven years we lived out of our suitcases, bouncing around the world on writing assignments, including the yearlong global trip that launched Grantourismo.
Another reason is because we’ve always lived in and spent a lot of time in countries where it was the custom to shop the local markets each morning, see what’s fresh and new and in season, and then decide what to cook that day. Whether it was Venice or Milan, where we rented apartments for work and pleasure over the years, or Siem Reap, where we live, where we have two local markets within a 5-10 minute walk.
We’ve maintained that habit – even when we’re not shopping the markets every day and we’re doing an evening shop at our local supermarket. I continued the habit when I returned to Australia at the end of last year to visit my mother – for one or two months that unexpectedly turned into a major chunk of the year. Don’t ask. I shopped Aldi the way we shop Psar Leu market in Siem Reap or Rialto Markets in Venice.
It was only when I took on the travel guidebook update from hell – and had very little time to do anything else other than spend 18 hours a day rewriting reviews, correcting phone numbers and prices, and inputting changes into a clunky content management system; guidebook updating is not what it was! – that I was forced to do some meal planning.
When it comes to meal planning, what I prefer to do rather than prep ingredients ahead, which kills good nutrients – as does refrigeration and cooking, so let’s save what we can! – is to plan to cook dishes that make great leftovers, so we can get two or three meals out of one.
The Spanish ‘poor man’s potatoes’ is one such dish. It makes a filling main with a side salad the first night, a fantastic side to roast chicken, grilled meats or sausages the second night, and, on the last day it’s so good combined with pasta to make an Italian style dish, as I’ve done with this penne pasta with sausage, potatoes and peppers.
Now, I make that potato dish just so I can make this pasta. I’m sure there are lots of other vegetable side dishes where you could do the same.
Tips to Making this Penne Pasta with Sausage, Potatoes and Peppers Recipe
As usual, I only have a few tips to making this penne pasta with sausage, potatoes and peppers, as it really is easy, even if it takes longer than some of the other quick and speedy pasta recipes I’ve been sharing this year – and obviously it’s even faster to make if you’re not cooking it from scratch, and you made the poor man’s potatoes the day before.
Make sure to boil the whole baby potatoes in a pot of salted room temperature water, so they evenly cooked. Only cook the potatoes until they’re almost cooked, and take care not to over-cook the potatoes, as you’ll be finishing them in a big deep fry-pan or skillet so you don’t want them to fall apart. You want the potatoes to be firm and a little tender.
After cooking the vegetables in the pan I transfer them to a casserole pot and keep the lid on so they continue to soften and stay warm.
I’ve been buying big, fat, juicy Italian-style sausages imbued with Mediterranean herbs. I’ve also made this dish with a spicy Spanish chorizo, and I’ve used leftover Wagyu beef sausages from Aldi, which were surprisingly affordable and incredibly delicious.
This dish is a great way to use up leftover sausages. If they’re already cooked slice them, if they’re big sausages, slice and quarter them so you have bite-sized pieces, as I recommend in the recipe. But if the sausages are fresh you could remove the skins and crumble them.
I always use a large slotted spoon to scoop the pasta out of the pot into the pan, rather than draining the pasta, in case I want to transfer a little cooking water to the pasta. The starch from the pasta water helps thicken a sauce and helps it cling to the pasta. But I haven’t found that’s needed for this dish, but always good to have options.
I use ground paprika in the dish to add warmth, but then serve the dish with chilli flakes on the table for an added kick of heat. I also serve dishes of fresh flat-leaf parsley and grated Parmesan on the table – usually Parmigiano Reggiano, or Pecorino Romano or Grana Padano cheese, as a little goes a long way – along with a bottle of good quality extra virgin olive oil.
Penne Pasta with Sausage, Potatoes and Peppers Recipe
Equipment
Ingredients
- 250 g baby potatoes - scrubbed, skins on
- ½ cup extra virgin olive oil - divided, good quality, preferably Spanish
- 1 garlic clove - peeled, pounded
- 1 large purple shallot - or small red onion, thickly sliced
- 1 small green capsicum - thickly sliced
- 1 small red capsicum - thickly sliced
- 1 small yellow capsicum - thickly sliced
- 250 g penne
- 2 large rustic sausages - Spanish or Italian
- ½ tsp ground paprika
- ½ tsp sea salt - or to taste
- ½ tsp ground cracked black pepper - or to taste
- ½ cup flat-leaf parsley - roughly chopped
Instructions
- To a large pot of salted water over high heat, add the whole baby potatoes and boil until almost cooked, around 10 minutes or so, taking care not to over-cook them, as you’ll finish them in a pan; they should be firm, but a little tender.
- While the potatoes are cooking, in a big deep pan or skillet over medium-high, heat half the extra virgin olive oil in a deep pan until shimmering, add the pounded garlic, slices of shallot or onion and bell peppers (capsicums), stir to fully coat them, then stir occasionally until soft. Put the lid on until the potatoes are done.
- When the potatoes are almost done, transfer the fried peppers and shallots to a casserole pot and put the lid on. Scoop the potatoes out of the pot and set them aside to cool.
- Bring the same water to a rolling boil, add the penne and stir to separate, put the lid on, and cook according to the packet instructions until al dente.
- In the same pan in which you cooked the onions and peppers, fry the sausages until cooked. Cut the sausages into thick slices, then in halves or quarters (bite-size pieces), and transfer them to the casserole pot.
- Cut the baby potatoes into four thick slices. Add the remaining olive oil to the pan you cooked the shallots, peppers and sausages in. Transfer the potato slices to the pan, sprinkle on the ground paprika, salt and pepper, increase the heat, and fry the potatoes until golden-brown, turn them, and brown the other side. Reduce the heat to low.
- Transfer the potato slices to the casserole pot, sprinkle on half the parsley, salt and pepper, give everything a gentle stir to combine, and return the lid.
- Use paper kitchen towels to wipe the pan clean. When the penne is al dente, use a slotted spoon to transfer the penne to the pan. Tip the contents of the casserole pot into the pan with the penne, and give it all a gentle stir to combine.
- Divide the pasta between plates, drizzle on a little extra virgin olive oil, sprinkle on more fresh parsley, and serve immediately with more parsley, salt and pepper, chilli flakes, and grated parmesan on the table.
Notes
Nutrition
Please do let us know in the Comments section below if you make this hearty penne pasta with sausage, potatoes and peppers, as we love to hear how our recipes turn out for our readers.
