Gordon Ramsay’s sausage pasta is fast and rich, made with Italian sausages split from their skins, cherry tomatoes and tagliatelle, all pulled together with starchy pasta water in about 15 minutes. No tinned tomatoes, no long simmer. The sausage seasoning does the work for you.
This recipe appears in the Ultimate Cookery Course as “Tagliatelle with Quick Sausage Meat Bolognese,” where Ramsay writes: “Because it’s already beautifully seasoned, it gives you a head start and means you achieve greater depth of flavour in double quick time.” He demonstrates it on YouTube too, calling it “perfect when you’re really busy but still want great tasting food fast.”
The technique that makes this different from every other sausage pasta is the pasta water. Ramsay adds a few spoonfuls of the starchy cooking water directly into the pan, explaining that “the starch thickens the sauce and helps it stick to the pasta.” Without it, you’ve got dry sausage meat sitting next to wet pasta. With it, everything binds together into a glossy, clinging sauce.
Gordon Ramsay Sausage Pasta
Course: DinnerCuisine: British, ItalianDifficulty: Easy2
servings5
minutes10
minutes620
kcal15
minutesFrom the Ultimate Cookery Course: Italian sausages split from their skins, browned and tossed with cherry tomatoes, tagliatelle and starchy pasta water. Five main ingredients, 15 minutes, serves 2.
Ingredients
1 tbsp olive oil
1 small onion, finely diced
1 garlic clove, thinly sliced
3-4 Italian-flavoured sausages (fennel or Sicilian)
150g (5 oz) dried tagliatelle
200g (7 oz) cherry tomatoes, halved
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Freshly grated Parmesan, to serve
Directions
- Cook the pasta: Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil. Add the tagliatelle and cook for 10 minutes or until al dente. Reserve a cup of the cooking water before draining.
- Sweat the aromatics: Heat olive oil in a frying pan large enough to hold the pasta later. Fry the onion and garlic for 3-4 minutes until softened.
- Brown the sausage meat: Cut open the sausage skins and squeeze the meat directly into the pan. Break it up as you fry so it resembles small pieces of mince. Cook for 4-5 minutes until browned.
- Add the tomatoes: Toss in the halved cherry tomatoes with a little seasoning. Cook for 5 minutes over medium heat until the tomatoes begin to break down. Add a tablespoon or two of the reserved pasta water to create a sauce.
- Combine: Drain the pasta and add it directly to the pan with the sauce. Toss well, loosening with more pasta water if needed. Taste and adjust seasoning.
- Serve: Plate immediately with freshly grated Parmesan on top.
FAQs
Why split the sausages yourself instead of buying sausage meat?
Ramsay is specific about this: you buy whole sausages and squeeze the meat out yourself. Sausage meat from a packet is usually a coarser grind with less seasoning. Whole sausages come pre-seasoned by the butcher with fennel, herbs or spices already mixed through.
That built-in seasoning is the entire shortcut. You get depth of flavour from one ingredient that would normally take five or six separate seasonings to build.
Why cherry tomatoes instead of tinned?
Cherry tomatoes break down in 5 minutes and keep a fresher, sweeter flavour than tinned. They also release less liquid, so the sauce stays thick and concentrated rather than watery.
This is a 15 minute dish. Tinned tomatoes need a longer simmer to lose their raw, acidic edge. Cherry tomatoes are already sweet, so they work on the short timeline.
How does pasta water thicken the sauce?
Pasta cooking water is full of starch from the tagliatelle. When you add a spoonful to the sauce, that starch binds the fat from the sausage meat with the tomato juices and creates an emulsion that coats every strand of pasta.
Ramsay explains in his YouTube demonstration: “the starch thickens the sauce and helps it stick to the pasta.” It’s the same technique Italian chefs call mantecatura, just without the name.
Do the sausages have to be Italian?
The cookbook says “fennel or Sicilian, if possible.” The YouTube video is more relaxed: “any flavour sausage will do.” Cumberland, pork and herb, even chorizo would work, though the flavour profile changes with each.
The key is quality. Cheap sausages have more filler and less meat, so they fall apart into mush instead of browning into crispy pieces. Go for at least 85% pork content.
How is this different from the regular bolognese?
Completely different dish. The spaghetti bolognese uses beef mince, tinned tomatoes, red wine reduced to a syrup and a 20 minute cook. It’s a heavier, deeper sauce designed to sit on top of spaghetti.
This sausage pasta is lighter and faster. Fresh cherry tomatoes, no wine, no puree, and the pasta goes into the pan with the sauce instead of being served separately. Ramsay designed it for those nights when you need dinner in 15 minutes, not 30.
