Italian Sausage and Spinach Pasta is an easy pasta dish that is ready in 20 minutes! And creamy white wine parmesan cheese sauce is simply delicious! Easy creamy pasta dinner recipe that is quick and packed with flavor!
Italian sausage and spinach pasta is a family favorite Italian pasta recipe!Italian sausage is so easy to cook with, and spinach adds tremendous amount of flavor to this restaurant quality pasta dish! What’s even better is that creamy parmesan sauce comes in tandem with finely minced sautéed onions and garlic, and a splash of white wine!
What kind of pasta to use for this Italian dish
You will love rigatoni in this creamy pasta dish! Rigatoni is a big, ridged, tubular type of pasta. I love its texture in this cheesy pasta sauce. The ridges in the noodle help catch the sauce, giving every bite a punch of flavor. Definitely go for rigatoni!
If rigatoni is unavailable for some reason, my second choice is penne. Even though it’s a smaller tubular type of pasta, it will work great with the Parmesan cheese sauce.
How do you make Italian sausage and spinach pasta?
Very easy! This was such a delicious pasta dinner inspiration for me that I cannot wait to hear what everyone else has to say about it. Italian sausage and pasta do go together very well.
You will start by cooking pasta according to package instructions. Once you have your pasta boiling, start browning the Italian sausage. Next, add the prosciutto and continue cooking until sausage is browned and prosciutto is crispy.
How to cook prosciutto perfectly
If you never cooked prosciutto, below are a couple of things to keep in mind:
- Because prosciutto is very thin, it will cook very fast.
- You should cut prosciutto into ½-inch wide strips.
- Brown the prosciutto in the skillet for three to four minutes ONLY, until it becomes crispy.
- You can easily avoid overcooking prosciutto by adding it towards the end of the cooking process.
How to make Parmesan Cheese Sauce
You will now remove both from the pan in order to make the sauce next. First, add onion and garlic and cook until translucent and fragrant. Second, you will add spinach and then season everything with salt and pepper.
Once you smell something delicious coming out of that pan, it’s time to pour in wine! I usually let the wine reduce for 2-3 minutes at this point. Fire roasted tomatoes go in next, followed by the heavy cream and Parmesan cheese.
Final Assembly
Doing things in this order will make sure that your sauce is nice and even. See how easy it is to make the creamy sauce? Next, add the spinach and cook until wilted.
Right before you add sausage and prosciutto back into the pan, make sure to taste the sauce and add more seasoning if necessary. If you want a little kick to the sauce, you can also add crushed red pepper flakes at this point. I simply add black pepper because it gives jus enough flavor and is not overwhelming.
Now that sausage and prosciutto is back in the skillet, you can go ahead and add rigatoni and chopped parsley. Done! So delicious!
Can I make it ahead?
If you would like to make Italian Sausage and Spinach Pasta dish ahead of time, here are a few tips!
Use oven to reheat. Because Italian sausage pasta contains heavy cream, it will have the best texture if you reheat it in the oven.
Refrigerate for up to 1 day. Pasta will become soggy shortly so if you choose to make it ahead, plan on up to 12 to 20 hours max.
Can I freeze it?
Yes.
- In order to do so, place your sausage pasta in the casserole dish and allow it to cool completely, then freeze.
- Next, wrap the dish in a good layer or two of heavy-duty aluminum foil.
- Freeze for up to 2 months.
Enjoy Italian Sausage and Spinach Pasta with a glass of wine!
More easy pasta dinner ideas
Creamy Chicken Pasta with Bacon
Italian Sausage Pasta
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 lb. Italian sausage
- 4 oz. Prosciutto, (chopped)
- ½ onion, (diced)
- 3 garlic cloves, (minced)
- 5 oz. fresh baby spinach, (about 2 cups)
- ¼ teaspoon sea salt
- ¼ teaspoon black pepper
- ½ cup white wine
- 14.5 oz. fire-roasted tomatoes, (1 can)
- 1 cup heavy cream
- ⅓ cup Parmesan cheese, (grated)
- 10 oz rigatoni pasta
- 2 tablespoon Parsley, (chopped)
Instructions
- Heat the olive oil over medium-high heat in a large skillet (cast iron or stainless steel). Brown the Italian sausage first, then add Prosciutto towards the end of browning the sausage (about 3-4 minutes). Once cooked, remove both to a paper towel-lined plate, set aside.
- Add the onion, saute until translucent. Next add the garlic and saute another minute, until fragrant. Now add spinach and cook until wilted. Season with salt and pepper.
- Pour in the wine and cook the alcohol off slightly, about 2 minutes. Now add fire-roasted tomatoes. Lower the heat, stir in the heavy cream.
- Add the Parmesan cheese and simmer just a bit, until the sauce has thickened slightly.
- Next add cooked Prosciutto and Italian sausage. Simmer a bit again, to heat them up.
- Bring a large pot of water to a boil, salt the water. Add the pasta and cook according to package instructions.
- Drain the pasta and add it into the pan. Stir well to coat. Add chopped parsley.
- Serve with extra Parmesan on top.
Nutritional information is provided as a courtesy only. This information comes from online calculators. Although whatsinthepan.com attempts to provide accurate nutritional information, these figures are only estimates.
I’m not sure what happened but this was awful. No flavor. The sauce didn’t thicken at all and I added butter. I used plenty of spices and still nothing.
Parmesan cheese, Italian seasoning should do the trick seasoning wise. Also do not be afraid to use more salt. depending on how long you cook it, salt will evaporate. So adding more want cause your blood pressure to spike:).
Could you use half and half instead to cut down on calories?
Yes, I’ve done that before with half and half.
I hate cooked spinach, but have a ton of fresh basil in my garden, and I love basil. Do you think if would be over powering if I replaced the spinach with basil?
Probably use about 20-25 leaves of basil and it will taste great! That’s what I usually use in my other recipes when not using spinach.
Thanks, I will give it a try this week
Made this tonight and it was pretty good. The prosciutto was lost among the cream and sausage and onions and really quite useless. I would leave it out if I make it again. Also, in step 2, calling the onion and garlic mixture “sauce” was really quite confusing – it lead me to think that the tomatoes needed to go in, so I put them in after the garlic was sautéed. Not a big deal, just confusing.
Good idea. I will update.