Post Furlough Food/Student Food: Sausage and Tomato Pasta

It never ceases to amaze me that people need to buy pasta sauce.  You know just the tomato and herb kind. It is the easiest thing in the world to make and you can even freeze it if you need to.  Why is it something that supermarkets sell multiple brands of ?   The answer is of course that it is so versatile, it can be used in countless pasta recipes and can even make the transition to rice dishes (jambalaya and the like) or be used in things like pie fillings.  However for most "with tomato sauce" recipes you just need a tin of tomatoes or in my case for more flavour value passata.  The following is just one idea with variations.

Sausage and Tomato Pasta - Serves 4

vegetable oil
1 Onion chopped
8 sausages
carton of value passata
300 g pasta
Courgette, chopped

Heat oil in pan and fry onion and courgette until soft. Remove the skins from the sausages and add to the pan and cook for 10 minutes breaking them up as they brown. Add the passata and season. Bring to the boil and cover and simmer for 10 minutes until cooked. 
Cook the pasta in boiling salted water once the  passata has been added to the pan. Drain and stir in the sausage mix .

Variations:

Tinned tomatoes can be used instead of passata but you may need two tins or one tin and a squeeze of tomato puree to get the same depth of flavour, a single tin is only 4 p cheaper than the passata but also more watery.

Add crushed garlic when you add the sausages.

Use sausages with herbs in for more flavour

Veggy sausages also work well

Substitute any other veg for the courgette, mixed veg, carrot, sweetcorn, peppers, peas any mix of what is in the bottom of you fridge can be added maybe not potatoes though as you already have the carbs from the pasta.

Add mixed dried herbs at the same time as the passata.

Add chilli instead of herbs

Add grated cheese before serving

Use leftover cooked meat instead of the sausages.

Use cooked pulses in place of sausages.

Turn into pasta bake and sprinkle with breadcrumbs and cheese

For a storecupboard emergency recipe tinned hotdog sausages can be used, sliced rather than "crumbled"

Skip the skin the sausages stage if you can get sausage meat - sometimes this is cheaper for example Tesco sells pork sausagemeat for £1.50 for the same weight as their mid range sausages which cost £1.70

Prices from basic version (Tesco used as "average" supermarket price, with mid range sausages- could be done cheaper if necessary)

Hearty Food Co Spaghetti  (20p for 500g) -12p

1 onion- 10p

8 pack of Lincolnshire sausages - £1.70

Growers Harvest Passata - 32p

courgette- 40p (yep really- seasonality has hit as I write this at the beginning of November!)

that's about 66p per person but you could buy value sausages and swap the courgette for a handful of frozen mixed veg and bring the total cost down by another 70p to give a price of  49p ish per head and of course if you have been clever enough to grow your own veg then that shrinks a little more than that even. A big filling plateful for four for the less than the price of tins of spaghetti hoops in tomato sauce from the brand leader at 68p per tin.  Four tins of hoops or homemade.  No contest.