Pasta With Chorizo, Chickpeas and Kale

Been experimenting with this recipe and most valuably for us, once the chorizo is working (including TJ's soy-based chorizo), variations on greens (spinach, kale, mustard greens, clean-out-that-veg-drawer!) are all great. Manchego's slightly softer texture than Parmesan renders the dish more creamy when mixed in, Parmesan more nutty. If you want a more stewy dish, add a cup and a half of pasta water. It is a total family favorite every time.

Used 8 oz pasta for 4 servings. I had a 14-ounce package of frozen wild boar chorizo (ground, not in casings). Used it all, but it didn't yield as much fat as the sausage would so required a little extra olive oil. My small bunch of kale yielded about 3 cups of chopped kale - more would have been ok, but 3 cups was plenty. Used just 1 cup of chickpeas. Finished with pecorino (no manchego on hand.) So I varied each of the quantities by quite a bit. Very flexible recipe, and tasty.

Absolutely loved this dish. Took the rec of another poster & used TJ’s vegan chorizo & it was SO good! The orangy goodness doesn’t readily come off this “chorizo,” & I had to cook it a bit longer, but it was fabulous. Even better the next day! We added mushrooms and used a regular onion - because that’s what we had. Someone used the short pasta, so I made creamy, cheesy polenta, & YUM! I’m actually buying the ingredients to make this again. Huge hit!

Awesome recipe. Agree with adding lemon.

Great for riffing off. Didn’t have chorizo, used leftover BBQ chicken that I added later with the pasta. Added garlic and paprika in decent quantity to make up for the chorizo flavor. Used white beans, and instead of kale: red onion and red peppers sautéed. Completely new recipe but super tasty with grated parm and lemon juice on.

This was GRAND. Even with old Pizza Hut parmesan packets I found in my drawers. I didn't worry too much about the measurements--I used a full-size 14 oz "chorizo" sausage from Kroger (probably not real chorizo haha), about half a 16-oz bag of kale, and a regular can of chickpeas. I forgot about cooking the kale in some pasta water, added cut garlic from a jar, and used Lawry's seasoned salt. Fire!

I love this dish, and agree with those who say it needs a little acid. One way to accomplish this is to hit the kale with a couple splashes of white wine and lemon juice in the first phase of cooking. The kale then becomes an accent of bright flavor in the overall dish.

Good recipe but needs lemon juice to further build up the flavour

Very good, quick, and easy. Couldn’t find Spanish Chorizo, so I used cooked spicy Italian from Trader Joe’s. Also no green onions, so sliced up a white onion and cooked it with the chickpeas. 8 oz of pasta is actually enough for 4 people in this dish.

Dash of vinegar helped everything incorporate and brighten! Otherwise per protocol. Yum.

Just in case anyone was wondering- I made this using the Trader Joe’s Soyrizo and it worked very well! Had to add more olive oil to replace the fat that would otherwise be in real chorizo, and I also added lemon and plentyyy of cheese. It was great!

I added lemon, smoked paprika, and garlic as advised by other cooks. Putting the greens in and sauteeing was a mistake. Just add the greens with the pasta and cook a minute.

The recipe as is was a little bland, but adding some pesto really took it up a notch. I will keep this in my recipe rotation, but it definitely needs some sauce, acid, or something give more depth of flavor and tie it together

Followed to a “T” and it tasted like nothing :( Our family felt it needed a heavy hit of acid like a squeeze of lemon or some red wine vinegar added when you were reducing the pasta water. Love the idea but unlikely to make again even with those tweaks.