Red Pepper, Tomato & Houmous Spaghetti

Red Pepper, Tomato & Houmous Spaghetti is a great recipe to use up that little bit of houmous which gets left at the bottom of the tub in the fridge. A dollop of houmous transforms a basic tomato sauce into a creamy, thick, pasta-coating, satisfying sauce with a slight nutty flavour.

Houmous doesn't freeze well to use as a dip, but for this recipe it doesn't matter as it's cooked in the sauce. Freeze leftover houmous before it goes out of date and add it straight to the sauce from frozen. It melts really quickly and tastes no different to adding it from fresh.

This recipe was given to me by friend Donna a couple of years ago and has since become one of my favourite vegetarian pasta dishes. I've tweaked it a bit - I use roasted red peppers from a jar for speed. You could easily dice up and fry some fresh red peppers instead. 

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Red Pepper, Tomato & Houmous Spaghetti

• Serves: 2

• Time: 15 minutes start to finish

• Cost: 90p per serving

• Calories: 560 per serving

Ingredients:

• 200g spaghetti

• 1 tablespoon of olive oil

• 1 clove of garlic, crushed

• 1 finely chopped red chilli (optional)

• 1 x 400g tin of chopped tomatoes

• 1 roasted red pepper (from a jar) diced

• 1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika

• 1 - 2 tablespoons houmous

• Fresh basil and parmesan cheese to serve (optional)

• Salt and pepper to taste

Method:

1. Cook the spaghetti in a large pan of boiling salted water for around 10 minutes until it's al dente.

2. Heat the oil in a large frying pan. Fry the garlic and chilli (if using) for one minute. Add the tomatoes and pepper and simmer for 5 minutes or until the spaghetti has cooked.

3. Add the cooked spaghetti to the tomato sauce along with the smoked paprika and houmous. Give everything a really good stir. Serve immediately topped with fresh basil and grated parmesan if you like.