Marry Me Pasta with Italian Sausage
Hot Italian sausage browned and crumbled, simmered in a sun-dried tomato cream sauce with garlic, parmesan, and fresh basil, tossed with rigatoni. The pasta that earned its name. Thirty minutes, one pan plus a pasta pot, and it genuinely tastes like something you'd order at a restaurant and think about for days.
Ingredients
Meat & Protein
- 1 lb hot Italian sausage casings removed if links
Produce
- 5 garlic cloves minced
- 0.5 cup fresh basil roughly torn
Dairy
- 1 cup heavy cream
- 1 cup parmesan cheese freshly grated
- 2 tbsp unsalted butter
Pantry & Canned Goods
- 12 oz rigatoni pasta
- 0.5 cup sun-dried tomatoes packed in oil, drained and roughly chopped
- 2 tbsp tomato paste
- 0.5 cup chicken broth low sodium
- 1 tbsp olive oil
Seasonings & Spices
- 1 tsp Italian seasoning
- 0.5 tsp smoked paprika
- 0.5 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
- 0.5 tsp black pepper
- 0.5 tsp kosher salt to taste — the sausage contributes saltiness
Instructions
- Bring a large pot of heavily salted water to a boil. Cook the rigatoni according to package directions until just al dente — pull it one minute early. Reserve one cup of pasta water before draining. Set pasta aside.
- While the pasta cooks, heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the Italian sausage and break it apart with a spatula. Cook for 5 to 7 minutes, stirring occasionally, until deeply browned and cooked through — don't rush this step, the browned bits on the sausage are where the flavor comes from. Transfer to a paper towel-lined plate. Pour off most of the grease, leaving about a tablespoon in the pan.
- Reduce heat to medium. Add the butter to the pan. Once melted, add the minced garlic and cook for 60 seconds until fragrant. Add the tomato paste and cook, stirring constantly, for 2 minutes until it darkens from bright red to a deeper rust color and starts to stick slightly to the pan. This step — caramelizing the tomato paste — adds depth that you cannot get by adding it directly to liquid.
- Add the sun-dried tomatoes, Italian seasoning, smoked paprika, and crushed red pepper flakes. Stir to combine. Pour in the chicken broth and scrape up any browned bits from the bottom of the pan. Let it reduce by half, about 2 minutes.
- Reduce heat to medium-low. Pour in the heavy cream and stir to combine. Bring to a gentle simmer — not a boil — and cook for 3 to 4 minutes until the sauce thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon. Add the parmesan a handful at a time, stirring between additions on low heat until fully melted and incorporated.
- Return the browned sausage to the pan. Add the drained rigatoni and toss to coat everything in the sauce. If the sauce is too thick, add reserved pasta water a splash at a time until it loosens to a consistency that coats every piece of pasta without pooling. Taste and adjust salt. Remove from heat, scatter fresh basil over the top, and serve immediately with extra parmesan.
Notes
Hot Italian sausage is the call here, not mild. The cream and parmesan in the sauce are rich enough to absorb a significant amount of heat without the dish becoming spicy — the heat from the sausage comes through as warmth rather than burn. Mild sausage produces a sauce that tastes slightly flat against the richness of the cream. If you're cooking for people with genuine heat sensitivity, use mild and add extra crushed red pepper flakes to your own bowl.
Caramelize the tomato paste. This is the step most recipes skip and it's the one that makes the sauce taste like it cooked for two hours instead of twenty minutes. Two minutes of stirring the paste against a medium-heat pan until it darkens transforms it from a raw tomato flavor to something rounder and more complex. Don't skip it.
Pasta water is the emergency fix for every sauce consistency problem. Starchy pasta water loosens a thick sauce without diluting the flavor the way plain water does. Always reserve a cup before draining — you won't always need it but you'll be grateful when you do.
Leftovers keep refrigerated for 4 days. Reheat in a pan over low heat with a splash of cream or pasta water. The sauce will have thickened overnight — a small amount of liquid and gentle heat brings it right back.
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!