This pasta dish was a work in progress from beginning to end. The original plan didn’t involve cream, white wine or baking. The idea behind this dish was that I could easily cook the sausage and veggies ahead of time and then reheat them and cook the pasta right before Joe got home from taking an evening test.
When I went into the fridge to get the kale and sausage I saw a bottle of white wine and some leftover cream, that’s how the cream sauce idea was created. Then, I got over-excited and cooked the pasta too early. So there I was with cooked pasta getting mushy and sticking to itself with another 30 or 40 minutes until Joe would be home. I turned the oven on low, mixed the pasta into the sauce, added some parmesan cheese and extra cream, put the skillet in the oven and went back to reading my book.
When he got home dinner was warm, creamy, cheesy and ready to eat. I think the dish benefited from my impatience. It allowed all the ingredients and flavors to fully incorporate and baking a pasta dish never makes it worse.
You could totally make this dish without baking it. You could also increase the temperature to 350 degrees and bake it for less time. I think it would be great with spinach instead of kale or regular sausage instead of chicken sausage as well. I used Aidells Chicken & Apple Sausages that are already fully cooked, so if you use other sausage be sure to allow it to cook all the way through before adding the cream and wine.
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- 3 garlic cloves, minced
- 2 shallots, sliced
- 2 chicken sausage, halved lengthwise and sliced ¼ inch thick
- ¾ + cup cream
- 2 tablespoons white wine
- ½ cup water
- 2 white mushrooms, sliced
- 1 bunch of kale, torn or coarsely chopped
- ¼ cup freshly grated parmesan cheese, plus extra for serving
- 10 ounces radiatori
- Heat oil in a large skillet over medium-low heat. Add garlic and shallots and cook until shallots start to wilt, 3-4 minutes. Add sausage and cook until edges begin to brown, 5-6 minutes.
- Meanwhile, cook pasta in a large pot until done. Preheat oven to 200 degrees.
- Add ½ cup cream, water, white wine and mushrooms to skillet and simmer until reduced by half, about 10 minutes. Add kale and stir. Drizzle a little extra cream in the skillet and cover, allowing the kale to steam and wilt.
- Mix cooked pasta into the sauce in the skillet. Stir in the remaining ¼ cup cream and ¼ cup of parmesan cheese and bake skillet in a 200 degree oven for about 20 minutes.
- Serve with extra parmesan cheese.
Comments
Gotta love the versatility of pasta! This sounds like such an excellent meal and super easy to throw together with leftovers in the fridge. Perfect for any weeknight. thanks for sharing…
-Shannon
Pasta is definitely my go to meal and I always have some frozen chicken sausage in the fridge. Thanks for stopping by Shannon!