Your new weeknight favourite: Smashed sausage pasta with balsamic onions

With sweet red onions, crispy sage and golden sausage meatballs, this quick pasta dish from Donal Skehan’s new book proves that midweek dinners can be rich, easy and full of flavour

Sweet balsamic onions and golden sausage make this quick pasta dish a weeknight winner (Donal Skehan)

“Balsamic-y sticky red onions add sweetness to this rich, speedy sausage pasta supper,” promises cookbook author Donal Skehan.

Smashed sausage pasta

Serves: 4

Ingredients:

Olive oil

6 good-quality sausages

3 red onions

4 garlic cloves

2 anchovies

2 sprigs of rosemary

50g butter

Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

350g bucatini pasta

A pinch of chilli flakes

2 tbsp balsamic vinegar

150ml chicken stock

10 sage leaves

Method:

‘Donal’s Real Time Recipes’ is packed with fuss-free meals ready in 30 minutes or less (Yellow Kite)

1. First, set a deep-sided frying pan over a medium heat and drizzle in a little olive oil. Squeeze the meat out of the sausages straight into the pan, forming little sausage meatballs, and cook for 5-6 minutes, turning occasionally, until golden. Remove from the pan and set aside.

2. Meanwhile, thinly slice the red onions and garlic, roughly chop the anchovies and strip the leaves from the rosemary.

3. Add the butter to the pan you cooked the sausages in, then add the red onions and rosemary leaves, season with salt and cook for 7-8 minutes, until softened.

4. Get a pot of water on to boil. Season the water and cook the pasta according to the packet instructions.

5. Back to the onions. Begin to turn the heat up underneath them so they start to go golden and caramelised, then add the anchovies, garlic and chilli flakes to the pan and cook, stirring, for a few minutes until the anchovies have melted and the garlic is fragrant. Add the balsamic vinegar and stock, then return the sausages to the pan and bring everything to a simmer for 5-6 minutes, to cook the sausages through.

6. Heat a few tablespoons of olive oil in a small frying pan for a few minutes. Fry the sage leaves for a minute, or until fragrant and a deep green, then remove to kitchen paper to drain.

7. Add the cooked pasta to the sauce using tongs, stirring the pan constantly to coat the pasta in all that lovely sauce. Serve in bowls, with the fried sage leaves scattered on top.

‘Donal’s Real Time Recipes’ by Donal Skehan (Yellow Kite, £25).