Can I prepare this pasta with fennel sausage in advance?

Absolutely! You can make the sauce for this pasta with fennel sausage a day in advance; the flavors will only deepen. Gently warm the sauce just before serving. Cook the pasta only à la minute (al dente) and mix it directly with the warm sauce, the cooking water, and the Parmesan cheese for that delicious, creamy binding.

Which pasta goes best with a recipe using fennel sausage?

For a hearty recipe with fennel sausage, it's best to choose a robust type of pasta. We use paccheri in this dish — large, wide pasta tubes. Because this pasta is so big, the rich sauce with pieces of sausage and melted cheese slides beautifully into the hollows. Don't have paccheri at home? Then rigatoni, penne, or mafaldine are also fantastic alternatives that hold the chunky sauce well.

What makes an Italian fennel sausage recipe so special?

The magic of an authentic Italian fennel sausage recipe (Salsiccia al finocchietto) lies in the perfect balance of spices. The pork is traditionally flavored with roasted fennel seeds, which gives it a unique, warm, and slightly anise-like flavor. When you fry and simmer this meat in a tomato sauce, it immediately releases a deep, rich flavor without needing to add spices for hours.

Paccheri pasta with fennel sausage

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40min

•

Easy

I'm taking you on a journey to the sunny South with an absolute classic from Italian cuisine: paccheri with a delightful, savory sauce. And believe me, the secret of this pasta dish lies entirely in the meat. We are making an incredibly delicious recipe with fennel sausage.

If you know me a bit, you know that I love honest, pure ingredients with tons of flavor. This pasta with fennel sausage is the perfect example of that. Fennel sausages have that typical, slightly anise-like touch that pairs wonderfully with sweet cherry tomatoes and a generous handful of Parmesan cheese. We use paccheri for this recipe: that delicious, large tubular pasta where the sauce and cheese nestle in so nicely.

I'm taking you on a journey to the sunny South with an absolute classic from Italian cuisine: paccheri with a delightful, savory sauce. And believe me, the secret of this pasta dish lies entirely ...

Ingredients

What do you need?

Quantity: 4P

2 tablespoons olive oil
4 cloves of garlic
1 large onion
400 g Italian fennel sausage
1 chili pepper
400 g cherry tomatoes, halved
400 g paccheri (tube-shaped pasta)
1 teaspoon salt
150 g Parmesan cheese (grated)
1 bunch of basil

Preparation method

How do you make this?

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Pour olive oil into a pan over low heat and sauté the garlic and onion.

Cut open the casings of the sausages, remove the meat, and add it to the pan along with the chopped chili pepper. Break up the meat a bit and sauté everything nicely for 4 to 5 minutes, leaving some chunky pieces.

Add the cherry tomatoes and let them stew until they become soft.

Cook the pasta in salted water as indicated on the package. Drain and reserve some cooking water.

Add the pasta, one ladle of cooking water, and the Parmesan cheese to the pan and stir well together.

Finish off with roughly chopped basil.

The sauce gets into the thick tube pasta, making it somewhat filled. Pure enjoyment when eating it.