Sausage & Pasta Salad with Wholefood Option
This sausage and pasta salad makes for a lovely summer lunch or dinner. There are lots of vegan sausages on the market and increasingly, different flavours too, eg hot dogs, chorizo flavoured and more.
Brands? most of Linda McCartney's range; all of Fry's; all of VBites; Vegetarian Choice; Wicken Fen; Wheaty; Dees .... many are in supermarkets, the rest in health food shops. Cauldron has also launched a vegan sausage - clearly marked on packet to differentiate from its non-vegan range.
If you prefer a more wholefood option, use cooked pulses - black beans, chickpeas or cannellini beans all work well - with some avocado plus a few nuts and seeds.
Ingredients:
- 175-200g dried pasta, eg penne, fusilli
- ½ vegan stock cube (or use powder below)
- 1 tsp or vegan bouillon powder (green Oxo, Marigold vegan bouillon or Kallo)
- 5-6 vegan veggie sausages, cooked and sliced (eg Linda McCartney's, Morrison's or Fry's). Alternatively, VBites sausages and hot dogs can be used straight from the packet
- 2 sticks celery, chopped
- ½ bag of bean sprouts
- 2 large handfuls of spinach leaves
- 1 red pepper, chopped into small pieces
- 4 large lettuce leaves, chopped (not iceberg)
- ¼ cucumber, diced small
NB a bag of good quality mixed salad could be used instead if preferred - try one with dark leaves and other goodies. And feel free to tweak the vegetable options - ie if you hate celery add something else, eg grated carrot.
Method:
1. Bring a large pan of hot water to the boil. Add the stock cube/powder and cook the pasta in it – check the instructions on the packet.
2. While pasta is cooking, cook the sausages (if necessary) and chop up the salad ingredients.
3. Drain the pasta and let it cool in a big bowl.
4. Finish preparing the other ingredients.
5. Add the sausages, salad vegetables and herbs to the pasta.
6. Make a basic dressing OR use a ready-made vinaigrette. If you prefer vegan mayo, thin it down a little with soya or other plant milk. The Tomato Herb Dressing elsewhere on the VRC site is also very nice and quick to make.
7. Pour dressing over the salad and mix well with some salt and black pepper.
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