Cavatappi Pasta with a creamy, flavorful sauce and Italian sausage. You don’t get much better than this.
How to Make Creamy Pasta with Italian Sausage
To begin, start a large pot of water for your pasta. Don’t cook your pasta yet, just get the water going for it.
In a sided skillet with a lid, heat a Tablespoon of oil and then brown 5 Italian Sausage links. Use beef or chicken Italian sausage. You may have to visit a specialty store to find it, or order it online.
You will cook these for about 10 minutes over medium heat, turning once. Put the lid on your skillet, so the heat will stay in and cook the meat all the way through. I apologize for missing this picture.
While the sausages are cooking, take a 16-ounce can of fire roasted tomatoes and give them a quick puree in a food processor.
Set them aside for the time being.
Dice up 1 onion and mince 2 cloves of garlic.
When your sausages are done, set them aside and then drain all but 1 Tablespoon of the drippings from the pan.
In the drippings, cook your onions and garlic for a couple minutes, until tender.
Go ahead and start your pasta cooking now. You’ll need 1 pound of Cavatappi. If you can’t find Cavatappi, don’t fret. You can substitute the very common “Farfalle” or bowtie pasta.
Carefully slice up your sausages. I hold them with tongs so I don’t burn my fingers. Slices should be 1/4 – 1/2 inch thick.
When your onions are tender, pour in 1/2 cup dry white wine,
Your pureed tomatoes,
Your sausages,
Then add 1/2 teaspoon dry rosemary, crushing the leaves with your fingers.
1 Tablespoon parsley, and some salt & pepper.
Let this cook all together over medium low heat for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
When your pasta is done, drain it and place it in a large serving bowl.
Stir in 8 ounces of Mascarpone Cheese into the skillet, melting it all together.
Pour the sauce into the pasta and toss gently to coat.
Top with a little grated Parmesan. Enjoy!
Creamy Cavatappi with Italian Sausage
Ingredients
- 1 lb Cavatappi pasta
- 1 Tb extra virgin olive oil
- 1 lb Italian sausage links, beef or chicken
- 16 oz fire roasted tomatoes, canned
- 1 onion, diced
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- ½ c white wine
- ½ teaspoon dry rosemary, crushed
- 1 Tb dry parsley
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon ground black pepper
- 8 ounces Mascarpone cheese
- grated Parmesan for topping
Instructions
- Start the water for the pasta.
- In a deep-sided skillet (with lid) heat oil and cook sausages over medium heat until browned on both sides and cooked all the way through. Cook with lid on to hold in heat.
- Meanwhile puree tomatoes in a food processor, set aside.
- Set sausages aside and drain all but 1 Tb drippings from pan. Sauté onions & garlic in drippings for a couple minutes, until tender.
- Meanwhile carefully slice up sausages (1/4 – ½ inch thick.)
- Start your pasta cooking.
- When the onions are tender, add the wine, pureed tomatoes, rosemary, parsley, salt & pepper, and sausages.
- Stir together and cook on medium low heat for 10 minutes.
- Stir occasionally.
- When the pasta is done, drain and place it in a large serving bowl.
- Stir the mascarpone cheese into the sauce until it is melted and combined.
- Pour the sauce over the pasta and gently toss to coat.
- Serve with some grated Parmesan on top.
- Enjoy!
Notes
Nutrition
If nutritional values are provided for this recipe, they are an estimate and will vary depending on the brands of ingredients you use. The values do not include optional ingredients or when ingredients are added to taste or for serving. If nutritional values are very important to you, I suggest using your favorite nutritional calculating tool with the brands you use.
Unit Conversions:
Unit Conversion for measurements (if displayed), going from US to Metric is an auto-generated conversion. If you are using the metric measurements, please double-check to confirm that these are accurate with your favorite preferred conversion tool.
When do you add the marscapone cheese? I didn’t see it in the directions.
Just before adding the sauce to the pasta. You stir and melt it into the sauce :)
Yum