Mushroom and Sausage Pasta

Every time it’s either my birthday or one of my siblings’, my mom lets the person whose birthday it is decide what to have for lunch. For some reason, we always choose this recipe, which maybe says something about what a great pasta it is. It’s kind of similar to the mushroom and tofu pasta, only much, much better. First of all, instead of coconut milk and pepper, it has an actual white sauce which doesn’t taste too different from the real thing. But most importantly, it also gets some time to cook in the oven, which makes it become nice and crunchy – making it tasty and interesting. 

Ingredients (serves 2)

• 400g rigatoni, mezze maniche, or tortiglioni
• 200g flour
• 4 tbsp margarine
• 150ml oat milk
• 200g any mushrooms
• 75g dried porcini mushrooms
• 4 vegetarian sausages
• 2 tbsp nutritional yeast (optional)
• salt
• pepper
• olive oil

Preparation (45 minutes)

Preheat the oven to 200 °C. Put the porcini mushrooms in water to soak for about 10 minutes. In the meantime chop all of the other mushrooms, then add them to a pan with 1 tbsp of margarine and a little olive oil. When the porcini are done soaking, drain them and add them to the pan as well. Chop up the sausages add them to a different pan with a little olive oil. Fill a large pot with water and a little rock salt, and bring it to boil. In the meantime, Add the other 3 tbsp of margarine to a saucepan, and let it melt. Once melted, add the flour and a little oat milk and stir. Continue stirring and adding oat milk until you are left with a creamy, liquid sauce. It may be necessary to add more flour or oat milk to get the right consistency. When the water is boiling, add the pasta. Stir every couple of minutes, and after about 8 minutes start tasting the pasta every minute or so to check if it’s ready yet. You should drain the pasta when it is quite al dente, but still edible, since it will be cooking longer in the oven. While the pasta is cooking, the sausages and the mushrooms should be nearly done. Add the sausages to the pan with the mushrooms and mix everything together. When the pasta is ready, drain it and toss it back in the pot. Add the mushrooms, sausages, and white sauce. Mix everything together, then pour it into a casserole and stick it in the oven. Leave for about 15 minutes, or until it is as crunchy as you like it. Enjoy it!