10 Minute Creamy Chorizo & Red Pepper Pasta

Creamy, smoky and full of flavour, this super quick 10 minute creamy chorizo & red pepper pasta is full of glorious Spanish flavour, hooray!

Charming Chorizo

What’s not to like about Chorizo?!

This gorgeously tangy, smoky Spanish cured meat has a powerful flavour that lends itself beautifully to so many different savoury recipes.

I adore how it crisps up in the pan and oozes tasty orange juices that gloriously flavour whatever else you throw in the dish, so yummy. 

Chorizo is also a fantastic quick cooking ingredient so it’s probably not surprising that you’ll find it featuring in a quick cook blog! And that you’ll find it happily appearing in this 10 minute creamy chorizo & red pepper pasta recipe.

Traditional Spanish chorizo can be made with a variety of different ingredients but in general, it is crafted out of chopped pork meat and fat, plus garlic, paprika and salt. It is typically classed as either sweet or spicy, depending on the variety.

Whole chorizo often comes in long ‘sausage’ shapes, often bent round into a U shape. It’s perfectly possible to use one of these fully formed chorizos to make a pasta sauce if you want. However, peeling off the fibrous skin and then chopping the rather tough & sinewy meat takes a lot of precious time and effort! 

I’m all about the quick cooking so I fully recommend getting hold of some pre chopped chorizo pieces for this quick pasta recipe. These are widely available these days in supermarkets. I don’t see using these pieces as cheating, as it’s the exact same basic ingredient – chorizo – just with the boring and time consuming chopping already done for you. It’s a total win-win in my book!

Veritable Veg

Red onion and red bell pepper are two other crucial ingredients in this 10 minute creamy chorizo and red pepper pasta. I think chorizo, pepper and onion are a match made in heaven in terms of flavour! Often, all three ingredients can be found nestling in that most traditional of all Spanish dishes – the paella. So you know you’re in for a tasty treat when you combine these three friends together.

Adding the onion and pepper also boosts the health benefits of this deliciously quick pasta dish. In fact, this dish actually has an impressive three portions of veg per serving which is a fantastic bonus from a nutrition point of view!

Ok, so the only drawback to using so much fresh veg is that there is a bit of chopping to be done. I generally try and steer clear of too much chopping in my quick recipes, however I find this only takes a minute so shouldn’t add too much to the total prep time for this 10 minute creamy chorizo and red pepper pasta recipe.

However, if you really wanna make this step super duper quick then you could always chuck both vegetables into your food processor and give them a cheeky 2-3 second whiz, instead of chopping them by hand!

Melting Mascarpone 

Contrasting with the savoury and salty flavour of this quick pasta dish is the smooth and creamy mascarpone cheese. Okay, so maybe it’s a bit odd to choose a soft Italian cheese to go with what is essentially an otherwise rather Spanish influenced dish… But hey, we are using pasta after all so why not go full throttle with the fusion food!

Mascarpone cheese is wonderfully creamy and has a slight underlying sweetness other soft cheeses just don’t seem to have. This sweetness pairs gorgeously with the saltiness of the other ingredients and makes a pasta sauce that really pops!

Ravishing Rocket

A generous handful of rocket (arugula) crowns this 10 minute creamy chorizo and red pepper pasta dish. This is for two important reasons – rocket has a lovely crisp texture and slight bitterness that works so nicely with the salty creamy sauce, meaning the flavour of the dish is really elevated.

Also, this pasta dish is really rather red in colour! Most of the ingredients are indeed red which can be a little bit much on the eye. A handful of crisp rocket leaves add a beautiful green topping to the final dish that contrasts gorgeously against all that red.

Perfect Pasta

I am no stranger to a quick pasta recipe!

I often use quick cook pasta as this helps ensure that whatever recipe I am making can be ready within that golden 10 minute window. Standard pastas can take up to 12 minutes to cook, but quick cook pasta can be done in as little as 4 minutes!

There are many different varieties of quick cook pasta available in stores these days to choose from. For this 10 minute pasta recipe, I’ve chosen to use quick cook fusilli, however you can use pretty much any shape that you want and it’ll work well.

Check out some of my other yummy quick to cook pasta recipes for more mealtime inspiration, such as this 10 Minute Spaghetti Carbonara, this 10 Minute Dairy Free Creamy Salmon & Spinach Pasta, this 10 Minute Cherry Tomato and Basil Spaghetti and also this 10 Minute Mediterranean Tuna Pasta!

STEP BY STEP GUIDE TO MAKING THE PERFECT 10 MINUTE CREAMY CHORIZO AND RED PEPPER PASTA

Now lets have a peek at how to make this delicious, creamy pasta recipe, with helpful photos to guide you…

STEP 1;

First of all, boil a large pan full of slightly salted water, all ready for your pasta. (If your hob is slow to heat up, boil up a kettle also then use that water in the pan).

STEP 2;

While the water heats up, grab yourself one small red onion. Peel it then finely chop it. Next, grab one medium sized red bell pepper. De-seed and finely chop this up also. Put both of these chopped vegetables into a medium sized frying pan or wok, over medium-high heat.

In this same frying pan, add 75g (2.6 oz) of pre-diced chorizo pieces (you can find this in most good supermarkets, so you don’t have to spend precious time chopping it yourself). Heat it all up, stirring everything frequently for 4-5 minutes until softening.

STEP 3;

While the chorizo mix cooks away, add 200g (7 oz) quick cook pasta shapes to the boiling salted water. You can use pretty much any pasta shape – I prefer using fusilli. Cook according to pack instructions. This is typically 4-6 minutes.

STEP 4;

Finely grate the zest of 1/4 lemon (just a little bit!) and add this to the chorizo and vegetable pan. Also to this pan, add 1 level tablespoon tomato paste, 1 level teaspoon sweet smoked paprika, 1 level teaspoon garlic puree (I use the kind from a squeezy tube), 4-5 tablespoons of water and a generous pinch of salt.

Cook this mixture for a further 1-2 minutes, stirring continuously. Then remove the pan from the heat and finally, add 2 level tablespoons of mascarpone cheese and give it a final stir. Note you may need to add a splash more water if the sauce is getting a bit too thick at this point.

STEP 5;

Remove the cooked pasta from the heat and drain it. Then divide this in equal amounts between two separate serving plates.

Spoon the cooked chorizo sauce on top of the freshly cooked pasta on each plate.

Finally, place a small handful of rocket (arugula) – about 30g in total – on top of each plate. Serve!