Hmmm, this butternut squash tomato sauce mixed with some tagliatelle pasta is a really warming and comforting dish for autumn! The sauce is made from a base of chorizo sausage, onion, garlic, peppers and chopped tomato to which you add the butternut squash and some fresh spinach! The whole thing is finished off with a sprinkling of feta cheese and basil to make the most amazing autumnal pasta dish!
How to make the Butternut Squash Tomato Sauce
Butternut squash can sometimes take for ever to cook! But in this recipe, the butternut squash is cooked in the microwave as a super quick and easy shortcut! In the meantime, you can make the rest of the pepper and tomato sauce.
I start off the sauce by frying some chorizo sausage, but you could also use some bacon instead or leave out the meat entirely for a vegetarian version! To that, I add some onion, garlic, chilli and a diced red pepper. A tin of chopped tomatoes and some of the cooking water from the pasta then goes in to create the sauce! I used a stick blender to puree the sauce at this point and remove some of the larger chunks of vegetable. The chorizo is actually nice in slightly larger chunks, so I tried to avoid pureeing that as much as I could.
Finally, the butternut squash is stirred into the sauce, alongside some fresh baby spinach. You can then toss the cooked tagliatelle or spaghetti in the finished sauce and serve it with some feta cheese and chopped basil leaves!
What Pasta should you choose?
With this kind of pasta sauce that is thick and packed with vegetables, I really like to serve it with spaghetti or a slightly thicker pasta, like a bavette or tagliatelle. Other pasta shapes, such as penne, would work well, too, but there is something very satisfying about digging into a large bowl of spaghetti/tagliatelle with a fork and a spoon (much to an Italian´s dismay!).
Cooking the perfect pasta is actually harder than you´d think (or at least that´s what the last few years at uni have taught me), so make sure you check out my student cooking basics post on How to cook Pasta (properly)!
More Delicious Pasta Dishes
I love a good pasta dish, and I have quite a few recipes on my blog! I have left the link to a few of my favourites below, so make sure you go and check them out!
- Spaghetti with Meatballs | Lady and the Tramp
- Easy Lasagne Recipe
- Creamy Pesto and Chicken Pasta
- Spaghetti with (Homemade) Basil Pesto and Feta Cheese
- Roasted Mediterranean Vegetable Lasagne
- Creamy Hummus Linguine
- Pasta with Cheese Sauce and Crispy Bacon
- Penne Tricolore
- Sundried Tomato Pesto with Spaghetti and Feta Cheese
Butternut Squash Tomato Sauce with Tagliatelle
Recipe
Ingredients:
- 1 medium butternut squashed (about 600g once peeled), diced
- 100g chorizo sausage (or 4-5 rashers of bacon), chopped
- A little olive oil
- 1 large onion, diced
- 3 cloves of garlic, minced
- 1 red chilli, finely sliced (optional)
- Small bunch of basil leaves, stalks and leaves chopped separately
- 1 red pepper
- 250g tagliatelle (or spaghetti)
- 400g tin chopped tomatoes
- 200g baby leaf spinach
- 100g feta cheese
Method:
- Start by peeling the butternut squash and cutting it into 1cm cubes. Place into a microwave-safe bowl with 6 tbsp of water. Microwave on high for 10-15 minutes until it´s soft enough to pierce with a knife.
- In the meantime, heat a little bit of olive oil in a large frying pan and add the chorizo and onion. Fry for a few minutes until the chorizo starts to crisp up and the onion starts to soften. Add in the minced garlic, chilli, red pepper and the chopped basil stalks and cook for a few minutes more.
- In the meantime, bring a large pot of water to the boil. Once the water is boiling, generously salt the water, add the pasta and cook according to the packet instructions (about 8-12 minutes).
- Add the chopped tomatoes to the frying pan for the sauce and mix into the other ingredients. Once the pasta has been cooking for a few minutes and the water is starting to take on it´s flavour, add 2-3 large spoonful’s of the cooking water to your tomato sauce.
- If you like, you can use a stick blender to blitz up the pasta sauce. I like the sauce to be fairly smooth with just a few chunks, so I don´t blend it up fully and also try to keep the chunks of chorizo whole if possible.
- Drain the pasta once cooked, remembering to reserve some of the cooking water (tips on how to do so in my cooking basics post here).
- Once the butternut squash has softened, stir it into the pasta sauce. Then add the baby leaf spinach and stir into the sauce. Leave to cook for 1-2 minutes until the spinach has wilted. Add a little more of the reserved pasta water to thin out the sauce a bit if it is still too thick.
- Finally, toss the drained pasta in the sauce until fully coated in it. Serve the butternut squash pasta with some crumbled feta cheese and the freshly chopped basil leaves.
