Simple Italian Pasta Sauce with Penne

This recipe is a simple Italian pasta dish that anybody can make. It is very simple to make but does require a bit of time for the sauce to simmer and develope a good taste. The pasta sauce is made with canned diced tomatoes although you could use fresh tomatoes. If you do prefer to use fresh tomatoes for the base of the pasta sauce you should simmer the tomatoes first for a few hours before getting started on the rest of the sauce. You'll want the sauce to have a perfect taste to it and not have that raw fresh tomato taste which will be too strong if you don't give it enough time on low heat.

The main ingredients are really for the sauce but the pasta itself that is recommended is a penne. To accompany the pasta you can choose to make a fresh garden salad with balsamic vinegrette and also a baguette or 2. For the baguettes you can choose to make a garlic bread with fresh garlic and olive oil. This recipe should make enough pasta for 4 people.

Pasta Sauce Ingredients

• 4 cloves of garlic
• 1 green pepper
• 1 white onion
• 150 grams of mushrooms
• 2 large cans of diced tomatoes (800ml per can)
• teaspoon of salt
• teaspoon of Italian seasoning
• pinch of black pepper
• pinch of flour
• 3 to 4 tablespoons of olive oil
• 400 grams of spicy Italian sausage
• 100 mL of cream
• 800 grams of penne pasta

Cooking & Preparation Instructions

1. Empty the 2 cans of tomatoes into a sauce pot and turn on low heat and let simmer for about 2 hours.
2. Add the olive oil, salt, black pepper, crushed garlic and Italian seasoning to the sauce.
3. Cut up all the vegetables: mushrooms, onion and green pepper and place into a sauce pan on low heat and add about 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Cook for around 40 minutes.
4. Take the Italian sausages and remove the meat from the skin and produce small meatballs. Place this into a frying pan and add in a touch of olive oil and cook for around 40 minutes. 
5. After cooking the vegetables and sausage add it to the sauce pan and let it simmer for around 1 hour. You can choose to add a pinch of flour to the sauce if you want to thicken it up a little. 
6. Cook the penne pasta in boiling water and at the same time turn off the heat on the pasta sauce. 
7. Once the pasta is cooked, strain the pasta and prepare to serve.

Just before the pasta is about to be cooked you can take 2 garlic cloves and crush them into a small sauce pot and add in 2 to 3 tablespoons of olive oil. You can cut your baguettes in half and put them in the oven. Once they are heated you can remove from the oven and slowly pour your garlic oil onto the bread.

You can serve this dinner with a glass of red wine and enjoy!