Pasta with chorizo al vino sauce is inspired by the popular tapas :chorizo al vino. The tapas consist simply of cooking chorizo sausages into red wine and a touch of smoked paprika, nothing else. I’ve used the idea, add a little extra veggies, like sweet bell pepper that goes perfectly with the chorizo and served it on pasta. I’ve thickens the sauce with a little cornstarch and tomato paste. A great spanish flavored dish!

Chorizo isn’t a spicy “hot” sausage, it’s a paprika sausage which can be softly spicy, sweet or smoked. I’ve used a smoky paprika chorizo for this dish. Those sausage are everywhere here in Spain, but depending where you are, I guess it might be harder to find those 3 types of chorizo sausages. If you want to reproduce the smokey effect with standard sausages, you can add some smoked paprika (pimenton de la Vera) to the sauce, then you’ll recreate this magnetic smokey flavour. Be careful with this smoked paprika, it’s quite powerful, a single tablespoon should do the trick.

In Spain, they make all kinds of chorizo tapas, for example, some are flamed in clay pots with rum or cooked in cider, some other kind simply grilled or topping a piece of bread with a padron pepper. For this particular recipe, I inspired myself with the chorizo cooked in wine version, which is so terribly simple to make and tasty.

So let’s make this chorizo al vino on pasta!

Pasta with chorizo al vino sauce

Makes 2-3 portions

Ingredients

• 300g of pasta of your choice
• 250g of chorizo sausage cut into thick pieces
• 250ml (1 cup) of red wine 
• 1 red bell pepper cut into slices
• 1 small yellow onion diced finely
• 1 garlic clove minced
• 1 big tomato cut into 2
• 1 tsp of cornstarch mix within 2 tbsp of cold water
• 1 tbsp of olive oil
• 1 tsp smoked paprika *optional (if the chorizo sausage isn’t smoked already)
• salt and pepper

Directions

1. Slowly cook the onion with some salt with the olive oil, in a saucepan, for a few minutes, until translucent
2. Add the chorizo sausage, garlic and bring to medium high heat, cook 1 minute
3. Add the tomato paste by grating the inside of the tomato with a cheese grater directly in the pan
4. Cook for 2 minutes until the tomato becomes thicker
5. Add the wine, pepper, *smoked paprika and let reduce, medium high heat, for 10 minutes
6. Add the cornstarch mix and let thickens the sauce, an extra minute or two
7. Season and serve on freshly cooked pasta

Serve with a touch of flat leave parsley and a rich Spanish red wine. Enjoy!