My best friend brought me a lovely salami (a pepperoni, actually) from Vermont this summer, and I decided to make a pasta sauce with it. It’s a thick mixture of some very basic ingredients that you probably already have in your kitchen. Very simple, but very tasty.
These ingredients come together in about fifteen minutes:
- About 8 oz penne or fusilli pasta (this time I used DeBoles Gluten Free Rice Penne)
- 1/2 a red onion
- 3-4 cloves garlic
- 1/3 cup hard salami or pepperoni (ordinarily I use turkey pepperoni)
- 1/3 cup tomato paste
- Olive oil
- Salt to taste
- Red pepper flakes to taste
OK, so we all make pasta our own way, to our own taste. But if you don’t add a bit of salt and olive oil to the water while it boils, you’re doing it wrong! Trust me on this one.
So get your water boiling, and while it’s heating up, chop the onion and salami into small cubes, and the garlic into small bits (take a look at the picture I’ve posted). Add these to a frying pan with a bit of olive oil, on low heat, while you cook your pasta. Stir the onion, garlic, and salami around a bit. If your salami is already greasy, you can go easy on the oil. Once the onion begins to wilt and brown a bit, add the tomato paste and some salt and red pepper flakes. Continue to stir the sauce together until the pasta is done, drain the pasta, and add the sauce into it. This recipe makes about two servings, so have it with your S.O.!
PhD Kitchen 