Like Shredded Beef Ragu, cooking this sausage pasta sauce long and slow gives it time to develop deep, complex flavours. Indulge in a full Italian banquet by adding a side of Garlic Bread and a garden salad with Italian Dressing!
Italian Sausage Ragu Sauce
I know I shared a Salmon Alfredo Pasta last week, but patience has never been my strongest virtue. Last week I went to an incredible Italian butcher/deli/bistro called Pinos Dolce Vita Fine Foods in Kogarah (Sydney, Australia). My eyes lit up at the sight of the cured meats cool room with rows and rows of hanging prosciuttos, the selection of real-deal-Italian sausages, beautiful handmade pastas, the bowls piled high with buffalo mozzarella, shelves jammed with the best of Italian produce. It took great restraint not to purchase everything I got overly excited about, but as I pleadingly explained to the shop assistant, I’d just done my weekly grocery shop and my refrigerator was chock-full already! So I “only” got 4 different types of Italian sausages. Then even though I had a cooking / shooting schedule all mapped out, it went straight out the window so I could make something using those sausages. Enter: Italian Sausage Ragu Sauce.
This Sausage Ragu gets its incredible flavour from the Italian sausages – and cooking it long and slow
Cooked long and slow, starting with the classic soffritto which might sound fancy but it just refers to sautéing onions, garlic, celery and carrots over low heat to make them beautifully sweet. It’s a secret tip to create an incredible base. 🙂 This ragu is rich with extra flavour owing to the addition of the Italian sausages. And the MUST DO step to serve this up is tossing the pasta with the sauce in some of the pasta cooking water!! It’s an absolute essential, called emulsification, it makes the pasta suck up the flavour and the sauce glossy so it sticks to every strand of pasta. I rant and rave about it in all my pasta recipes so I’ll save you the pain of hearing about it again! Oh wait, I think I just did. Sorry! 😉
See how the pasta is a bit red? That’s because it sucked up flavour while it was being tossed with the sauce. And you see how the pasta has sauce on it? Especially for thick pastas like pappardelle (which is the pasta pictured), if you don’t do the extra step of tossing the pasta with the sauce, the sauce doesn’t stick to the pasta so you end up with big mouthfuls of pasta with not much meat sauce.
In fact, I got SO excited about this ragu, I made it twice and the 2nd time I filmed it to make a video so you can see how easy this is to make! Oh – did I explain what ragu is? It’s really spaghetti bolognaise – done right, the real authentic Italian way. 🙂 Cooked long and slow, it’s rich and luscious, a big step up from the midweek spaghetti bolognaise we’re all probably very familiar with. And I am not turning my nose up at midweek bolognaise, not at all! This is one for the weekend. For lazy Sundays. 🙂 This Sausage Ragu recipe makes a lot. Serves 8, maybe even 10. I just didn’t feel it was worth making less! – Nagi x
More Slow Cooked Italian Goodness
Shredded Beef Ragu Spaghetti Bolognese – slow cook it for the ultimate experience! Lasagna – with slow cooked meat sauce
WATCH HOW TO MAKE IT
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