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Zesty Italian sausage is cooked with red peppers, garlic, tomatoes, and seasonings, then added to freshly cooked pasta for a perfect savory dinner.
Holly’s Recipe Highlights
- Flavor: This pasta dish is packed with zesty Italian flavors and can be as mild or spicy as you like.
- Skill Level: With simple ingredients, skillet meals like this one make cooking and cleanup a breeze.
- Serving: Garnish with fresh basil or parmesan and serve with your favorite garlic bread or a simple green salad.
Ingredient Tips for Italian Sausage Pasta
- Sausage: Choose mild or spicy Italian sausage depending on how spicy you want it; use bulk sausage or remove it from casings. Try swapping the sausage for leftover ground beef, chicken, or turkey.
- Pasta: This recipe calls for rigatoni, but feel free to use rotini, bowtie, or penne pasta.
- Veggies: Peppers, onions, and tomatoes make up the base of this recipe. Spinach, kale, asparagus, and even a bag of vegetable medley add color, texture, and a nutritional bump to this recipe.
- Seasonings: Savory homemade Italian seasoning is perfect for this recipe. No time to make it? Store-bought works, too!
How to Make Italian Sausage Pasta
- Cook pasta until al dente. Reserve 1 cup of pasta water.
- Cook peppers in oil until they’re softened and charred. Set aside.
- Brown sausage and onions. Drain any fat and then add garlic.
- Stir in the remaining ingredients (full recipe below).
- Simmer until slightly thickened (adding more pasta water if needed).
- Stir in pasta, and top with basil and parmesan before serving.
Storing and Reheating Leftovers
Leftover Italian sausage pasta can be stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 4 days. Or bake them into a casserole with a breadcrumb topping at 350°F to make a whole new dish.
Freezing isn’t recommended, but this recipe is so easy, simply start fresh!
Perfect Pairings for Italian Sausage Pasta
Did your family enjoy this Italian Sausage Pasta? Leave a rating and comment below.
Italian Sausage Pasta
Equipment
Ingredients
- 12 ounces rigatoni or other medium pasta
- 1 cup water reserved, from pasta
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 large red bell pepper diced
- 1 pound Italian sausage hot or mild, casings removed
- 1 onion diced
- 3 cloves garlic minced
- 28 ounces diced tomatoes 1 can, with juices
- 8 ounces crushed tomatoes
- 1 tablespoon tomato paste
- 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
- ¼ teaspoon salt or to taste
- ¼ teaspoon black pepper or to taste
- thinly sliced fresh basil leaves* for serving
- shredded Parmesan cheese* for serving
Instructions
- Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add pasta and cook to al dente according to package directions. Reserve 1 cup of pasta water and then drain well.
- Heat olive oil in a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add red peppers and cook, stirring often, until peppers are charred and starting to soften. Remove from pot and set aside.
- To the Dutch oven, add Italian sausage and onion. Brown sausage, breaking it up as it cooks. Drain any fat. Add garlic and cook 30 seconds more.
- Stir in diced tomatoes (with juices), crushed tomatoes, charred red peppers, ½ cup pasta water, tomato paste, Italian seasoning, salt, and pepper. Let simmer uncovered for 30 minutes or until slightly thickened, adding additional pasta water if needed.
- Taste and season with additional salt and pepper if needed. Stir pasta into the sauce. Top with fresh basil and parmesan cheese.
Notes
Nutrition Information
Nutrition information provided is an estimate and will vary based on cooking methods and brands of ingredients used.
Course Dinner, Entree, Main Course
Cuisine American, Italian© SpendWithPennies.com. Content and photographs are copyright protected. Sharing of this recipe is both encouraged and appreciated. Copying and/or pasting full recipes to any social media is strictly prohibited. Please view my photo use policy here.
I made this tonight. The only changes I made were using green pepper. The red peppers at the store were bad. I also added a few tablespoons of sugar to offset the acidity of the tomatoes. It was phenomenal!! My mom loved it so much she already requested it for her birthday supper in October.
I love that, Jaime! I am glad they enjoyed it so much.
This was delicious. I added zucchini from my garden but otherwise made as written. it was easy and everyone loved it.
Marci, that sounds wonderful! Fresh zucchini from the garden is such a great addition. So glad it was easy and a hit with everyone!
Can linguine leftovers be put in the freezer?
This will freeze nicely Stephen
I made this for supper tonight and it is GOOD. Thank you for sharing the recipe!
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