Sausage and Red Sauce Pasta
A slow cooker Friday dinner compressed into one pot and twenty minutes of fuel.
- calories
- 900
- weight
- 7.5 oz
- cal / oz
- 120
- protein
- 35 g
- serves
- 1, scales
- prep
- 2 min
- cook
- 12 min
- total time
- 14 min
- water
- 600 ml boiled
- cost
- $
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Dinner
- Canister stove
- Liquid fuel
- Campfire coals
- Backpacking
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Canoe / raft
- One pot
- Pre-mix at home
- Shelf stable
- Basic
Ingredients
| Dry pasta | 4 oz | small shapes, not long noodles |
|---|---|---|
| Hard cured sausage | 2 oz | soppressata or a dry salami stick, no refrigeration |
| Tomato powder | 3 tbsp | sun-dried tomato flakes work if you cannot find powder |
| Grated parmesan | 3 tbsp | the shelf-stable shaker kind |
| Olive oil | 1 tbsp | |
| Garlic powder, oregano, red pepper flakes | 1 tsp total | |
| Salt | 1/2 tsp |
Method
- Slice the sausage into coins before you light the stove. It is easier with cold hands than hot ones.
- Bring 600 ml of water to a boil. Add the pasta and the salt.
- Cook at a low boil until the pasta is just soft, around 8 minutes. Stir often so nothing welds to the bottom.
- Do not drain. Cut the heat and let the remaining water sit for a minute.
- Stir in the tomato powder, herbs, and oil. It will look thin, then thicken as it cools.
- Add the sausage and parmesan. Cover for two minutes off the heat, then stir and eat.
The original is a slow cooker recipe: sausage simmered in jarred sauce all afternoon, poured over pasta. None of that survives a pack. Jarred sauce is mostly water and glass, fresh sausage needs a fridge, and draining pasta wastes both fuel and a liter of hot water. So the sauce becomes tomato powder, the sausage becomes a cured stick that keeps for weeks, and the pasta cooks in exactly the water the sauce will need.
The measured water is the part to get right. Too much and you get soup, too little and the pasta stays chalky. Six hundred milliliters for four ounces of small shapes lands close, and the tomato powder absorbs whatever is left over. Cured sausage brings its own fat and salt, which is why the added salt stays modest.
Packing
Pasta, tomato powder, herbs, and salt go in one bag. Parmesan in a small bag of its own, sausage whole in its casing, oil in a dropper bottle.
Variations
- Swap the sausage for a foil packet of chicken if you want less fat.
- A tablespoon of powdered milk stirred in at the end turns it pink and creamy.
- Broken lasagna sheets pack flatter than any tube shape.
https://mealswithmaria.site/december-meal-plan