Easy pasta with sausage and peppers in a creamy sauce. Delicious for a weeknight or weekend entertaining, this is a quick pasta recipe that everyone loves!
In college, I sang in an a cappella group.
It was pretty cool, and now I work in a cappella.
The thing about a cappella groups is, that, after concerts come parties.
And sometimes, girls and boys get to know each other at these parties.
I tell you all this because I want you to be fully informed of how collegiate a cappella works. I think it'll be good for your personal well-being.
One time, I met a boy at one of these parties. A few weeks later, the same boy made me this pasta.
His family was from Italy, which made for some dang good pasta.
Pasta with Sausage and Peppers (Ingredients)
You're gonna love this! For 4-6 servings, here's what you need:
- cooked short pasta
- 4 links spicy or mild italian sausage
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 jalapeno pepper
- 1 bell pepper (any color)
- 1 small onion (or half of a large onion)
- 3 cloves garlic
- 1 large can crushed or diced tomatoes (or whole that you crush up....whatever)
- ½ cup sour cream (trust)
- salt and pepper
- parsley and parmesan cheese, for serving
Step By Step Instructions
First, prep the sausage. Look at this nice fresh stuff I had! Well....as fresh as ground up animal carcass with tons of salt to preserve it can be.
What I'm saying is, I love sausage.
Bring a small pot of water to a boil (OR THE PASTA WATER, look at all the time you could save!) and drop the sausage links into the water for 5-7 minutes.
Then, remove the sausage from the water and let it drain on paper towels until it's cool enough to handle.
Gray sausage isn't very appealing to me, so I vote we fix the gray.
Heat a large pan to medium heat, to crisp up the sausage.
Slice the sausage into pieces - don't worry if it's not all the way cooked through yet! We boil the sausage to get it started but the final time in the skillet crisping it up will cook it all the way through.
Crisp the sausage pieces in a large skillet over medium heat for 5-10 minutes until they are brown and crispy and lovely and wonderful.
While the sausage is crisping, gather your pasta and the rest of the ingredients for the sauce.
While the sausage is cooking (or way before all this, it doesn't matter), chop the onion and bell pepper, then slice the jalapeno and mince the garlic.
Nicely done. Now, if the sausage is done, remove it to a plate to rest while you make the sauce in the same pan.
Sometimes I eat half the sausage while I'm making the rest of the dinner....you should try not to be like me.
Timesaving Note: you could easily cook the sausage and veggies and pasta at the same time in three separate pans to save some time. I like crisping the sausage in the same pan as the sauce first because then the pan tastes like sausage, which is a good thing. It's up to you, though!
While you're making the sauce, cook the pasta, if you haven't already.
Keeping the pan over medium heat, add the onion and peppers with the olive oil and a sprinkle of salt to the pan.
Stir the veggies around for 3-5 minutes until they start to soften.
when the veggies are soft, stir in the garlic and let it soften for one minute, then add the tomatoes.
Delicious! Let this simmer for a few minutes, and taste it to see if you'd like to add some more salt or pepper.
You can add a few ladles of pasta water too, right before you drain it. It'll help everything stick together!
Once the tomato sauce is ready, add the sausage back to the pan.
Stir in the sausage, and let the sauce simmer over low heat until you're ready to serve.
Right before you're ready to use the sauce, stir in the sour cream and let it heat through.
The sauce is done! You can serve this any way you like. I like to mix half the sauce with the pasta....
Then top each serving with more sauce.
Because, that is, like, totally delicious.
Enjoy this one, guys! You're welcome for being THAT GIRL in college. It allowed me to bring you this gem.
PrintPasta with Sausage and Peppers
- Total Time: 45 minutes
- Yield: Serves 4-6 1x
Ingredients
- 16 ounces short pasta, cooked to al dente with one cup of cooking water reserved
- 4 links spicy or mild italian sausage (about one pound)
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 jalapeno pepper, thinly sliced
- 1 bell pepper (any color), diced
- 1 small onion (or half of a large onion), diced
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 large can crushed or diced tomatoes (or whole that you crush up....whatever)
- ½ cup sour cream (trust)
- 2 tablespoons grated parmesan cheese
- salt and pepper
- parsley and parmesan cheese, for serving
Instructions
- Bring a large skillet filled with about 3 inches of water to a boil. (alternatively, you can do this step before you boil the pasta and use the same water) Add the sausage links and boil for 5 minutes until about halfway cooked through.
- Remove the water from the skillet and preheat the same skillet to medium heat with the olive oil. Slice the par-cooked sausage links on a diagonal into 4-5 pieces each.
- Add the sliced sausage to the olive oil and crisp for about 3 minutes on each side until golden brown. Remove the seared sausage from the skillet.
- To the same skillet, add the onion and peppers to the sausage drippings with a sprinkle of salt. Stir to cook the veggies until they are soft and lightly brown at the edges. Add the garlic and stir into the peppers and onion for one minute.
- Add the canned tomatoes with another sprinkle of salt and a splash of the pasta cooking water. Stir to combine and reduce the heat to low. Let the sauce simmer for 10 minutes, tasting as you go for seasoning - the sauce should be very flavorful.
- When the sauce has simmered, add the pasta, sour cream, and parmesan to the skillet. Stir everything together, taste once more for seasoning, and serve! If the pasta seems dry, splash in a little more cooking water until you achieve a consistency that you like.
- Top with more parmesan and any fresh herbs you like right before serving. Enjoy!
Notes
Cooking the pasta: Be sure to cook your pasta in heavily salted boiling water, and drain it just shy of al dente so that it can cook for a minute in the sauce when you toss everything together.
Please consider using full fat sour cream. It adds so much to the flavor of the dish and is really lovely in this recipe.
If you are gluten free, use gluten free pasta OR turn this into a sausage and peppers over rice dish!
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 30
- Category: Main Dish
- Method: Stovetop
- Cuisine: Italian
Keywords: pasta with sausage and peppers, sausage and peppers with pasta, sausage and peppers recipe pasta
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