Description
This Vegan Sausage Pasta is one of our favorite go-to quick vegan dinner recipes. It’s satisfying, easy to make, loaded with flavor.
Ingredients
Units
Scale
- 16 ounces pasta of choice, we used rigatoni (see note 1)
- 1-2 tablespoons high heat oil, if not using a nonstick pan (see note 2 and 4)
- 8 vegan sausage links (see note 3)
- 1 large sweet or yellow onion, peeled and diced
- 2 medium bell peppers, seeded and diced (we prefer red, orange, or yellow)
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
- 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes, to taste or omit if preferred
- Optional: 24-28 ounces Marinara, if desired (see note 5)
Instructions
- Prep: Before beginning cooking, it’s a good idea to prep all your ingredients first so this process goes smoothly. Dice the onions, place in a bowl, then dice the peppers and place them in another bowl. Mince your garlic cloves and set them aside. Cut your vegan sausage into ½ inch rounds and add that to a bowl.
- Boil pasta water: At this time, start boiling enough water in a pot to accommodate your pasta. Make sure to salt your pasta water: When the water has reached a boil, add a generous amount of fine (table) salt to the pot, stir until dissolved, and make sure to return it to a boil before adding the pasta (this usually takes no more than 30-60 seconds for me.
- Start cooking sausage: In a large non-stick skillet over medium-high heat, add your sliced vegan sausage and cook for 5 minutes, turning occasionally, or until the sausages are really releasing their juices. (If you are using homemade vegan sausage, either seitan or tofu based, you may want to add a splash of oil while cooking for 5 minutes--if you prefer to cook without oil, lower the temperature slightly and watch carefully to ensure they don’t burn.)
- Add veg: Now add your onions and bell peppers and cook for another 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
- Add your pasta to the pot of boiling water, turn the heat down to medium, and cook according to package instructions. Stir occasionally and drain when finished.
- Add the minced garlic, Italian seasoning, and red pepper flakes to the skillet and stir well. If you desire to add marinara, I would add it now.
- Is it ready? Once the sausages have a nice dark brown color and the onions have caramelized, you are ready to serve. Turn off the heat.
- Serve: Add your pasta to a bowl or plate and serve your sausage, peppers and onions on top. Enjoy!
- Store: Refrigerate leftover vegan sausage and veg separately from leftover pasta. The sausage and cooked veg last longer than pasta do, but both will stay good to eat for 4-5 days in the refrigerator. Note that GF pasta can get a little hard in the fridge, so you may want to just cook as much as you’ll eat, then make more another day.
Notes
- Note 1: We like to use rigatoni, penne, or elbow macaroni, but use whatever you like for this dish. Use gluten-free pasta if needed.
- Note 2: If you are using a good quality nonstick skillet, you do not need to add oil, but if not, I recommend a super small amount of high heat oil (like grapeseed), about 1 tablespoon. If you are making one of my sausage recipes and you’re cool with oil, I do recommend cooking with a tablespoon of oil so the sausage gets nice and browned.
- Note 3: We most often use Beyond Meat Brats or Italian Sausage (for vegan Italian sausage pasta) for this recipe, but sometimes we use my homemade vegan sausage seitan for a special meal. There’s also my tofu-based vegan sausage crumbles if you are gluten-free. You may want to use a touch of oil with these recipes for a more cohesive and delicious dish, but if you cook without oil, that’s cool too.
- Note 4: Yes, but you’ll need to obtain oil-free sausage, which is why I recommend my homemade seitan vegan sausage or tofu vegan sausage crumbles. You’ll also need an excellent quality non-stick skillet. I LOVE All Clad’s nonstick pans and use them daily (have for years). Caraway and Scanpan are also great examples of quality nonstick cookware.
- Note 5: A lot of people do add marinara to this type of dish. We’ve tried it, and it’s pretty good (we do love Rao’s marinara). But we also love the flavor of the caramelized onions and vegan sausage, and we’ve found that marinara can dilute those flavors. So for our vegan sausage pasta, we prefer not to add any sauce. You do you, though!
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 15 minutes
- Category: Pasta, dinner
- Method: Stove Top
- Cuisine: American
Keywords: Vegan pasta, Vegan sausage peppers and onions, vegan dinner