One Pot Sausage Pasta (Creamy, 30 Minutes, One Pot to Wash)

This one pot sausage pasta is the dinner I make on the nights when I have exactly 30 minutes and no patience for a sink full of dishes: Italian sausage gets browned in a Dutch oven, onion and garlic go in after it, and then the dry penne cooks right there in the pot with diced tomatoes and chicken broth, soaking up every bit of sausage flavor while the starch it releases thickens the liquid into a sauce. A splash of cream, two big handfuls of spinach and a pile of parmesan at the end turn it creamy. It lands 28g of protein a serving, there is one pot to wash, and it has become the weeknight partner to my one pot chicken alfredo pasta and marry me chicken pasta — the three recipes I rotate through when I want something that tastes like I tried much harder than I did. On the nights I have even less time, the pastina soup I posted today is the 25-minute backup.

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Why this one pot sausage pasta works better than boiling the pasta separately.

• The pasta cooks in the sauce, so the sauce tastes like the pasta. When penne simmers in broth and tomatoes instead of plain water, it absorbs the sausage drippings and tomato juice as it cooks, and the starch it releases thickens the liquid into a sauce that clings instead of pooling. Nothing you can do with a separate pot of boiling water gives you that. It is the same reason my one pot creamy chicken and rice tastes richer than the two-pot version.
• Browning the sausage properly is the whole flavor base. Most of what makes this creamy sausage pasta taste so good is the brown crust on the sausage and the fond it leaves on the bottom of the pot. The onion, then the broth, scrape all of that up and it ends up in the sauce. Five patient minutes here is worth more than any extra ingredient.
• It is genuinely one pot and genuinely 30 minutes. No colander, no second pan for the sauce, no pre-cooking anything. From the time the sausage hits the pot to the time dinner is on the table is 30 minutes, which puts it in the same easy-dinner territory as my sheet pan sausage and veggies and garlic parmesan chicken pasta, and it is why it has become one of the most-made easy dinner recipes on the site.

Here's what you'll need.

Twelve ingredients, most of which you probably have: Italian sausage, penne, a yellow onion, garlic, a can of diced tomatoes, chicken broth, heavy cream, baby spinach, parmesan, Italian seasoning, red pepper flakes and a little olive oil.

Here's how it all comes together.

STEP 1 — Brown the sausage.

Heat the olive oil in a Dutch oven or deep skillet over medium-high. Add the sausage, squeezed out of its casings if you bought links, and let it sit for 2 minutes before you touch it so it gets a real crust. Then break it up with a wooden spoon and cook until no pink remains, 6 to 7 minutes total. Do not drain the fat unless there is a lot — a tablespoon or two is flavor.

STEP 2 — Soften the onion and garlic.

Add the diced onion to the pot with the sausage and cook, stirring and scraping up the browned bits, until it turns translucent, about 4 minutes. Stir in the garlic, Italian seasoning and red pepper flakes and cook just until fragrant, 30 seconds — garlic burns fast in sausage fat.

STEP 3 — Add the penne, tomatoes and broth.

Pour in the dry penne, the diced tomatoes with their juice and the chicken broth. Stir well so no pasta is sitting above the liquid and scrape the bottom of the pot one more time. It will look like a lot of liquid; the pasta drinks most of it.

STEP 4 — Simmer, covered, until the pasta is tender.

Bring it to a boil, then drop the heat to a steady simmer, cover and cook 12 to 14 minutes, lifting the lid to stir every 3 or 4 minutes so the pasta on the bottom does not stick. It is done when the penne is al dente and most of the liquid has reduced to a loose, saucy consistency. If it is still soupy, simmer uncovered for 2 more minutes.

STEP 5 — Stir in the cream and spinach.

Turn the heat to low. Pour in the heavy cream and add the spinach in two big handfuls, stirring until it wilts into the pasta — it looks like far too much spinach and then disappears in about a minute. The sauce will turn pale orange and glossy.

STEP 6 — Finish with parmesan.

Take the pot off the heat and stir in the parmesan a handful at a time until it melts into the sauce. Taste — sausage and broth vary a lot in salt, so you may need none or a good pinch. Let it sit 2 minutes to thicken, then serve straight from the pot with more parmesan.

If one-pot dinners that mostly cook themselves are your kind of cooking, there is a whole book of them — pastas, stews and braises built on olive oil, vegetables and big flavor — in the Ultimate Slow Cooker Mediterranean Diet Cookbook.

Things I learned while testing this recipe.

• Use a pot with a wide bottom. A Dutch oven or a 12-inch deep skillet gives the pasta room to cook in an even layer. In a tall, narrow pot the penne on the bottom overcooks while the top stays chalky.
• Measure the broth, and use regular penne. The 4 cups of liquid is calibrated for 12 oz of standard penne, which takes about 12 minutes. Whole wheat or protein pasta needs an extra 1/2 cup of broth and 2 to 3 more minutes; gluten-free pasta releases more starch and wants a stir every 2 minutes.
• Stir more than you think you need to. This is the one real risk in any one pot pasta: starch settles and the bottom layer sticks. A stir every few minutes with a scrape across the bottom prevents it completely.
• Pick your sausage on purpose. Hot Italian sausage makes a noticeably spicier, more interesting dish; sweet or mild keeps it kid-friendly. Chicken Italian sausage works too and trims about 90 calories a serving — add an extra tablespoon of olive oil when browning it.

Why this is the easy dinner I come back to every week.

• 28g of protein in a bowl of pasta. A pound of Italian sausage plus a cup of parmesan across six servings puts this at 28g protein a serving, which is more than most pasta dinners manage. If you are tracking toward a daily number, the protein calculator will tell you how much of your target one bowl covers.
• It is a complete meal, vegetables included. Tomatoes, onion and a full 5-ounce bag of spinach go into the pot, so it is dinner on its own. On nights I want a side, it is a green salad and nothing more.
• Leftovers reheat better than most creamy pastas. Because the sauce is built on starchy broth rather than pure cream, it loosens back up with a splash of milk instead of turning greasy. I make it on Sunday as often as I make it on a Tuesday, and if you like slow cooker comfort, the crockpot chicken alfredo I posted alongside it is the hands-off version of this kind of dinner.

Here's what I'd serve with this.

• Roasted cauliflower — a little char and lemon to cut the richness
• Air fryer brussels sprouts — crispy, 15 minutes and no oven needed
• Smashed cucumber salad — cold and crunchy next to the creamy pasta
• Mediterranean chickpea salad — bright and lemony, and it keeps all week
• Garlic parmesan chicken skewers — for the nights you want even more protein on the table

Just in case you have leftovers.

Storing: Cool completely and refrigerate in an airtight container for up to 4 days. The pasta will keep absorbing sauce as it sits, so it is thicker on day two — that is normal. It freezes acceptably for up to 2 months, though the penne softens a little once thawed; cream sauces do best frozen flat in a zip-top bag.

Reheating: Add a splash of milk or broth, cover and warm in a skillet over medium-low for 5 to 6 minutes, stirring once or twice, or microwave at 70% power in 60-second bursts with a spoonful of milk stirred in between. Finish with a little fresh parmesan and it tastes nearly new.

More easy easy dinner recipes...

One pot chicken alfredo pasta Marry me chicken pasta Creamy cajun chicken pasta Zuppa toscana

Also new today: crockpot chicken alfredo — shredded chicken and fettuccine in a slow cooker alfredo sauce with 39g protein a serving, for the nights you want dinner to cook itself.

More dinners that cook in one pot

If you liked how little work this one took, the Ultimate Slow Cooker Mediterranean Diet Cookbook is built around the same idea — simple olive-oil-and-vegetable dinners, mostly one pot, that do the cooking while you do something else.

Get the cookbook on Amazon

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