Sausage and Peppers Pasta
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A Sausage and Peppers Pasta recipe everyone will love! This is a simple and flavorful meal that your family will be sure to enjoy.
This sausage and peppers pasta is perfect for busy weeknights when you want something quick and easy, but still flavorful and nutritious!
With only 8 ingredients and spices, in 40 minutes you can have a delicious dinner on the table!
Why we love this Sausage and Peppers Pasta
There is a lot to love about this recipe. It’s one of our favorite quick and healthy dinners because it’s:
- High Protein: Packed with protein, each serving of this recipe has 38 grams. Check out these High Protein Dinners!
- Simple Ingredients: You only need whole, healthy ingredients for this filling dinner.
- Easy to make: Cook your sausage, cut your peppers, and toss in your al dente pasta! It’s so easy and takes less than 40 minutes to throw together!
Ingredients
Here’s what you need for this recipe:
- ground sausage – we buy ours locally. Look for sausage with no added fillers, in a casing. Whole foods has a good option! You can also buy plain ground sausage out of the casing. I like spicy Italian sausage but you can use sweet Italian sausage too!
- olive oil, butter
- onion, garlic
- crushed red pepper, salt, black pepper
- red bell peppers
- dry pasta – this recipe is good with rigatoni, orchette – any short pasta!
- parmesan cheese
It will also be helpful to have this tool to break apart meat.
Substitutions
Ground Italian Pork Sausage: We don’t recommend substituting the sausage. You can use chicken sausage or pork sausage, but make sure it is ground sausage!
Peppers: You can use red, orange, or yellow bell peppers in this recipe.
Onion/Garlic: We don’t recommend substituting onion or garlic. They add a lot of flavor!
Pasta: This recipe is good with most pastas but our favorite is rigatoni, fusilli, or cavatelli. I haven’t tried it with orzo, but I feel like it could also be good! (This Chicken Orzo is our favorite!)
How to make Sausage and Peppers Pasta
- Add ground pork sausage to a hot pan with oil. Brown for 8-10 minutes until cooked. We like this tool to break apart ground meat. Once browned, remove the sausage from the pan and place it in a paper towel-lined bowl leaving a small amount of oil in the pan.
- Sauté onions and spices for 3 minutes or until onions are translucent. Add garlic to the pan, stir and cook for an additional 3 minutes. Add peppers and cook for another 3 minutes.
- Stir in cooked sausage with the peppers. Add 1 tablespoon of butter and remove the pan from heat. Stir in cooked, drained pasta and 1/3 cup pasta water for 2-3 minutes or until coated. You will want to toss the ingredients together and stir with a spoon or spatula to cover the al dente pasta with the sauce we built.
How to serve
Sausage and Peppers Pasta is a complete meal in itself and really doesn’t need anything to go with it aside from a fresh salad if desired. However, if you’re looking for ideas on how to serve it try:
- fresh bread
- a Healthy Caesar Salad or a Healthy Kale Salad!
- with a side of veggies like Garlic Brussels Sprouts or parmesan Asparagus
Storage Options
Storing: This will last in the refrigerator for up to 4 days in an airtight container.
Freezing: We don’t recommend freezing this pasta. Pasta can get very soggy when frozen. You could make the base sauce and exclude the pasta when freezing, that way you can thaw your sauce and boil some al dente pasta to stir in and enjoy!
Reheating: You can reheat this recipe in the microwave or on the stove. It’s best heated on the stove in a lightly greased pan.
FAQs
Yes! Sausage and Peppers is a classic Italian food.
Sausage and peppers pasta is good for 3-4 days when stored in the refrigerator in an airtight container.
The flavors in this sausage pasta recipe comes from the peppers and spices!
Other healthy pasta dinner recipes:
Looking for other easy meals? Check out these 40+ Healthy Dinner Recipes. Click here to grab our free healthy 30 minute dinners cookbook.
Here are some other great pasta recipes to try out!
Sausage and Peppers Pasta
Ingredients
- 1 pound ground pork sausage or taken out of casings 4-6 sausages depending on size
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- ½ cup diced onion
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon black pepper
- ¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper
- 1 tablespoon minced garlic 2 garlic cloves
- 3 cups diced red bell peppers 3 medium red peppers – 3/4 pound
- 1 tablespoon butter
- 1 pound dry pasta of your choice rigatoni, cavatelli, etc
- ⅓ cup pasta water
- ½ cup grated Parmesan cheese
Instructions
- Heat a large sauté pan to medium high heat. Preheat the pan for at least 2 minutes, then add olive oil and heat for an additional minute.
- Remove sausage from the casing. Add ground sausage to the hot pan. Brown for 8-10 minutes until cooked.
- Once the sausage is browned, remove sausage from the pan and place in a paper towel lined bowl. This helps drain the excess oil from the sausage. You can leave a small amount of oil in the pan (about 1 teaspoon and the extra brown bits stuck to the pan..no need to wash it!)
- Add onions, salt, pepper and red pepper flakes to the pan. Sauté for 3 minutes or until onions are translucent.
- While onions cook, start a large pot of boiling water for the pasta. Boil pasta according to package directions but I recommend keeping it al dente! While pasta is cooking – reserve 1/3 cup of the starchy water from the pot! I usually like to take a ladle and reserve my pasta water for our sauce when the pasta is just about finished cooking.
- Once onions are translucent, add garlic to the pan and cook for an additional 3 minutes.
- Once garlic has cooked, add peppers to the pan and cook for 3 minutes or until they begin to soften.
- Add your cooked sausage back to the pot with the peppers. Stir together over low heat. Add 1 tablespoon of butter and remove the pan from heat.
- Add your cooked, drained pasta and reserved pasta water to the sausage/pepper mixture. Stir together for 2-3 minutes or until a sauce coats all of the ingredients nicely.
- Season generously with parmesan cheese, serve in a pasta dish and enjoy!
Video
Most recipes that I make that are clean eating are bland and tasteless. I must say I could eat this every night of the week! Thanks for sharing.
My family loved this pasta dish! It is so light and full of flavor. One of our new favorite recipes!
I think it’s is easily in my top 5 favorite dishes. As always, this recipe is super easy and quick to make and it seems it can be altered to your liking (different meat/veggie options). I’m curious how a chicken sausage with some mushrooms would do. Thanks for another great recipe! You da real MVP!
Really tasty
Great recipe! I served it with a dollop of Greek yogurt for some added protein.
So easy and a nice change from pasta with sauce
Made this for a group of 30 and it was a big hit! Everyone complimented the dish and I know they were sincere compliments because many of my guests went back for seconds. Thank you for sharing this amazing recipe. It’s already printed and saved in my special recipe binder.
This has become a favorite, we make it at least a few times a month. Looooove!
This recipe was amazing! So flavorful and easy to make. Definitely my kind of recipe! It was even delicious cold as a salad the next day! The only thing I might do different next time is use a little less pasta…or perhaps more of the other ingredients!
I made this for supper and it was delicious. I did use less pasta. I will be making this again. This is a great recipe for potlucks.
This was delicious. We used hot Italian sausage in ours and a little extra garlic. 10 out or 10 will make again.
This was an easy delicious quick meal. To accommodate a low sodium diet I made it without the salt and used 1/4 sausage and 3/4 ground pork. I’m sure the regular recipe is super.
So delicious with just the right amount of spice! Definitely will make again!
Dish was easy to make and delicious. The only thing I did differently was use hot Italian sausage and omitted the red pepper flakes. Definitely a keeper. Daughter visiting in July will be making for her.
This recipe is packed with a flavor! My husband and I really enjoyed it, definitely will be adding this one to my recipe file
Dish was great with a simple salad. I used a spicy Italian sausage. The only thing I would change is use less pasta. A pound of pasta in the mixture was too much.
I made this recipe off a whim since I had all the ingredients. Not only was it super easy, but it was delicious and my family LOVED it. I’ve definitely book marked this and incorporated it into our monthly meal plans.
Very tasty and quick dinner. I made with gluten free gnocchi and it was a nice change from traditional pasta sauce
This recipe was excellent. It tasted light and healthy- all while eating pasta. I loved that there was no canned sauce because it truly didn’t need it! Super easy to make!
Looked so good, I made it for dinner tonight and already had the ingredients on hand. Great weeknight meal!
Absolutely delicious! Used chickpea pasta and turned out amazing! The flavors went so well together and it was a great weeknight meal! Looking forward to the leftovers and another meal in our rotation! A must try!
Very nice change of pace here. Ty very much.