Pesto Pasta with Sweet Italian Sausage
The base for an awesome meal!
In keeping with the early fall theme I’ve had going on here, I’m still cranking out food that is inspired by my garden. I have mixed feelings on this as I LOVE me some fresh from the backyard food, but I also love me some fall and just cannot wait to get out my Dutch oven and get my braise on. But one of the things I’m working on in life is to just be in the season that I’m in and if my garden is going to keep the food coming, then I’m going to cook with it.
Recently my son has developed a deep love for pesto. This makes me so proud as it was only a few years ago this kid had these feelings for dinosaur shaped chicken nuggets:) One evening as I was gathering basil to make up a batch of pesto (fresh really is the best and I have a great recipe for it HERE) I decided I wanted to try something a little different. Usually, I serve pesto over chicken and pasta but was feeling a little chicken bored. So I poked around in the freezer and came up with some sweet Italian sausages. A quick trip back to the garden produced a few cherry tomatoes that I decided to slice up and toss in.
The rest is history and now I have a weeknight staple that can be made in almost no time. Even if I factor in making the pesto myself I still only add about 10 minutes as pesto is dump and process. So if you are feeling the need for fast and fresh weeknight food that looks like you really put some effort in, toss this tasty pasta dish into your rotation. You won’t regret it and who knows? Maybe you will convert a chicken nugget lover or two ;)
Pesto Pasta with Sweet Italian Sausage
Prep Time: 5 minutes | Total Time: 30 minutes | Serves: 4-6
Ingredients
- 1- 1 1/2 cups prepared pesto (homemade or store bought)
- 8 oz spaghetti
- 1/2 lb. sweet italian sausage (about 2 1/2 sausage links)
- salt
- cherry tomatoes, pepper, fresh grated Parmesan cheese (optional)
Directions
- In a medium skillet, cook sausage until no longer pink. Make sure to break up sausage well and drain the fat after cooking
- While sausage is cooking, bring a pot of salted water to a boil and prepare the spaghetti per package instructions
- Drain spaghetti and return to pot. Add prepared pesto to pasta and mix well to combine
- Add drained sausage to pot and mix again until well combined
- Serve pasta with cherry tomatoes, some freshly grated Parmesan cheese, a dash of pepper or just in a bowl!
Tips
- I don’t like to be super demanding on my recipes, but if there is any way at all to do so, make the pesto yourself. If you have a little food processor this can be done in under 10 minutes. If you do not, then go find a friend or neighbor who will loan you one as the flavor of freshly made pesto is something all humans need in their lives at least once. But if it is a night where even using the bathroom takes planning, then a jar of your favorite good quality pesto will stand in just fine.
- I enjoyed the cherry tomatoes in this pasta, but they are not a necessity. I like the hint of sweet they give to the dish but I would not run out and get a whole container of them just for this.
- If you have any other long thinnish pasta on hand (vermicelli, bucatini, even angel hair) it would work in this recipe. Spaghetti is used in this recipe simply because I always have a box of it:)
