Microwave Pasta Sauce – Mushroom and Salami
A really easy microwave pasta sauce that takes only a little more time than the pasta.
It’s so tempting to just use a jar of sauce, isn’t it? Yes, they’re full of sugar and salt, but you know the flavour will be well balanced. You know it will be tasty.
Well, when you’re cooking from scratch, you can still cheat. I use salami to flavour this sauce, which doesn’t give it a really meaty taste, but provides just enough salt to take away the tartness of the tomatoes, and just enough flavour to round off the sauce.
If you don’t have frozen mushrooms, use frozen peas, or pre cooked mushrooms, tinned mushrooms or whatever you do have. We’ve developed a fondness for a certain brand of frozen mixed mushrooms – who’d have guessed the toddler would go wild for straw mushrooms? We served this with a salad of rocket, watercress, spinach and ‘greek style salad cheese ‘ (cheapskates’ feta).
If you don’t have a microwave I’m sure a small pan would work too. All microwaves are different and it’s important to know yours – but the microwave part didn’t cook the sauce through completely, it just warmed it to speed up the cooking when the two are combined.
Lizzie
Yields 2-3
1 minPrep Time
14 minCook Time
15 minTotal Time

Ingredients
- 170g (6oz) dried pasta (or according to your appetite)
- 1 1/2 400g (14oz) tins of chopped tomatoes
- 250g (9oz) frozen mushrooms
- 4 slices salami
- 2 teaspoons oregano
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 tbsp cornflour
Instructions
- Put the past on to boil.
- Mix the tinned tomatoes, mushrooms, oregano and garlic in a microwave safe jug.
- Tear the salami into small pieces and stir it in.
- Place the cornflour into a cup with approx. 2tbsp liquid from the jug and mix to a paste. Stir the paste back into the jug.
- Microwave the jug on full for 3 minutes, then stir. Heat for 3 more minutes.
- Stir, and heat for 2 more minutes.
- When the pasta is al dente, drain it and stir in the sauce.
- When the sauce is cooked through and thickened it is ready to serve.