Spicy Chorizo Pasta

By Ali Slagle

Published Jan. 13, 2021

Spicy Chorizo Pasta
David Malosh for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews.
Total Time
30 minutes
Rating
4(1,568)
Comments
Read comments

Macaroni and chorizo is classic Spanish comfort food. While iterations abound, it typically starts by frying smoked chorizo with a little onion, adding canned or fresh tomato and maybe some oregano, then letting it simmer into a thick tomato sauce. It’s often topped with cheese and baked like a mac and cheese. Instead of fresh tomatoes, this recipe uses highly concentrated tomato paste, which is made by cooking down tomatoes for ages so you don’t have to. The paste fries in the chorizo’s rendered drippings for a very fast, silky, smoky and spicy sauce. When shopping for this recipe, look for Spanish chorizo, a shelf-stable sausage usually found near salami and other cured meats in the grocery store. Mexican chorizo is sold fresh and is made with different chiles and spices.

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Ingredients

Yield:4 servings
  • Kosher salt and black pepper
  • 1pound orecchiette or other short pasta
  • ¼cup olive oil
  • 4ounces Spanish chorizo, casing removed (see Tip), if necessary, and thinly sliced
  • 3tablespoons double concentrate tomato paste (or 6 tablespoons canned tomato paste)
  • 3garlic cloves, peeled and smashed
  • ½teaspoon red-pepper flakes
Ingredient Substitution Guide
Nutritional analysis per serving (4 servings)

639 calories; 22 grams fat; 5 grams saturated fat; 0 grams trans fat; 13 grams monounsaturated fat; 3 grams polyunsaturated fat; 89 grams carbohydrates; 4 grams dietary fiber; 5 grams sugars; 19 grams protein; 396 milligrams sodium

Note: The information shown is Edamam’s estimate based on available ingredients and preparation. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.

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Preparation

  1. Step 1

    Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add pasta and cook, according to package directions, until al dente. Reserve 1 cup of the pasta cooking water, then drain the pasta.

  2. Step 2

    Meanwhile, in a large Dutch oven, heat the olive oil and chorizo over medium-high. Cook, stirring occasionally, until chorizo is crisp and brown, 2 to 3 minutes. Turn off the heat and use a slotted spoon to transfer the chorizo to a plate.

  3. Step 3

    Return the pot to medium heat and add the tomato paste and garlic. Cook, stirring, until the tomato paste is caramelized and a shade darker, 3 to 5 minutes, covering the pan if the splattering is wild. Add the red-pepper flakes and a few grinds of black pepper, then remove from heat.

  4. Step 4

    Add the cooked pasta and ½ cup of the reserved pasta water to the tomato mixture. Return the pot to the medium-high heat, and stir vigorously until the pasta is well coated. Add more pasta water until the sauce is glossy. Stir in the chorizo and season to taste with salt and pepper.

Tip
  • Some cured chorizo casings are edible, but if the casings on your sausage are white and chalky, plastic or especially thick, remove them before cooking.

Ratings

4 out of 5
1,568 user ratings
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Comments

Juliet Jones

Ah! A recipe for good old "macarrones con chorizo". This is everyday comfort food in Spain (where I lived for 25 years), just like mac 'n cheese is here. No need to "thinly slice" the chorizo; small bite size chunks work better. And this recipe seems awfully dry; I use a can of diced tomatoes cooked down with a little onion and garlic to make a tomato sauce. Bake it in the oven in a casserole dish with grated parmesan cheese on top. Oh, and any kind of pasta will do, usually small macaroni.

Laura

This dish was perfect as is, as long as you add enough of the reserved pasta water and then heat the pasta and tomato paste to make a glossy sauce. This preserves the caramelization of the tomato paste, which gives it a lovely smoky flavor. There’s no need to put in diced tomatoes, which make it a completely different dish. Honestly, sometimes I’m waiting for some of these notes to say that people added chocolate chips, green olives, and pine cones “and it was so much better that way!”

Leslie

This was pretty good, and certainly easy to make on a weeknight. I used chicken chorizo (since we generally don't eat pork). Next time I think I would add something green, like kale or broccoli rabe, and it would probably benefit from some sauteed onions.

Waves

Delicious and easy! I added some broccoli rabe and black olives from the fridge, otherwise followed the recipe. Will make again! Top it with freshly shredded parmesan.

Ellen M.

I had a pound of Mexican chorizo on hand, so that is what I used in this recipe. It was different but still very much a comfort food. With Mexican chorizo, I did not remove the meat after browning and simply continued on with the tomato paste and completing the recipe. I also added 2/3 cup of castelveltrano olives, halved, along with the pasta water. I liked the briny touch. I needed more than a cup of pasta water (with the extra meat), so reserve more than a cup, just in case.

Miriam M

Only used half the pasta but all the rest of the recipe. Gorgeous looking, silky taste, and really, really quick to prepare. It's going to my next potluck, for sure.

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