Porcini and Sausage Ragu
This delicious pasta sauce comes together in under an hour, but tastes like you’ve been cooking it for hours. Dried porcini mushrooms give a wonderful depth of flavor to the dish, while the flavorful sausage tricks your palate into thinking this dish has been developing all day.
Tips:
This is the perfect recipe to make double the batch and freeze one for later. It defrosts and reheats wonderfully.
Use any type of sausage you like. I prefer chicken sausage, but pork is good too.
Porcini and Sausage Ragu
Serves 4-6
PREP 30 minutes
COOK 30 minutes
INGREDIENTS
1 ounce dried porcini mushrooms
1 medium onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 pound Italian sweet sausage, out of casing
1- 28oz. can of San Marzano plum tomatoes, crushed by hands
1 cup chicken stock
1 teaspoon fresh rosemary, oregano or thyme leaves
Coarse salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
INSTRUCTIONS
Soak the porcini mushrooms in 1 cup of really hot water for 30 minutes.
While the mushrooms soak add the olive oil to a stock pot over medium-high heat. Sauté the onion until soft, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and continue to cook until the garlic is fragrant, about 1 minute.
Add the sausage and using a wooden spoon, break up the sausage while you cook it. Cook until the sausage is no longer pink.
Drain the mushroom through a coffee filter or cheesecloth, reserving the soaking liquid. Quickly rinse the mushrooms under running water and roughly chop them.
Add the porcini mushrooms, the strained mushroom liquid, tomatoes, herbs and chicken stock. Season with salt and pepper.
Bring sauce to a boil, them simmer for 30 minutes or until it is thick.
The ragu will generously cover a pound of pasta. I love rigatoni with this, but any pasta with a hole would be a good choice, as would shells or orecchiette since the cup will hold the ragu too. Serve along with parmesan cheese!