20 Minute Creamy Sausage Pasta

This Creamy Sausage Pasta is a 20-minute weeknight dinner loaded with the comforting, cozy flavors of Italian sausage, earthy mushrooms, and al dente rigatoni tossed in a super light white wine cream sauce. It’s made with mostly pantry staples which makes it easy to throw together when you’re short on time!

 

You Will Love This

• It’s cozy, comforting, and loaded with fresh flavors, but the light sauce ensures that the dish doesn’t feel too heavy. Some pasta dishes can leave you feeling stuffed and sluggish. This pasta has some protein from sausage and important vitamins from the mushrooms along with plenty of carbs from the pasta – but the sauce isn’t too creamy or heavy. It’s just creamy enough that it coats the noodles, but everything isn’t swimming in it! Be sure to check out my other favorite mushroom pastas like Creamy Balsamic Mushroom Pasta, Vegan Mushroom Stroganoff, or Vegan Mushroom Stew.
• It’s a quick and easy weeknight dinner and when you use my favorite large saute pan, you’re only dirtying two dishes – one to boil the pasta and one to cook and serve the dish! This recipe takes about 20 minutes from start to finish and you can get the pasta boiling while you brown the sausage, cook the mushrooms, and create the creamy sauce.
• The ingredient list is short and sweet! This creamy sausage pasta is filled with simple ingredients, many of which you’ll likely have on hand already. Mushrooms are usually the only thing that I need to add to my grocery pick up order when I want to throw this dinner together. Which makes it one of my favorite pantry staple recipes!

Instructions

Cook pasta according to package directions, until al dente. Toss in olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Set aside.

Heat a large saute pan over medium-high heat and add pork sausage. Cook, crumbling the sausage with a spatula until it’s cooked through. Add garlic, oregano, thyme, and a couple pinches of salt and pepper. Cook, stirring frequently, for 1 minute.

Add sliced mushrooms along with a couple pinches of salt and pepper.

Cook, stirring frequently for 3 minutes. Add white wine and simmer, stirring occasionally, for 2 minutes.

Turn heat to low and add heavy cream along with Parmesan cheese.

Stir until the cheese has melted.

Add al dente pasta and pasta water as needed. Toss to coat pasta evenly.

Cook, stirring frequently, until the pasta is heated through. Stir in vinegar and season to taste with salt and pepper.

Garnish with fresh chopped parsley and Parmesan and enjoy!

Tips

• Don’t forget to save the pasta water! When your pasta is just about done cooking, carefully use a measuring cup to skim about 1/2 a cup of water from the pot. Set it aside until you’re ready to dress the pasta. Pasta water (AKA liquid gold) has starch in it so that it helps the sauce stick to each noodle and coat it evenly.
• This creamy sausage pasta is a “prep and cook as you go” dinner! While the pasta is boiling, get the sausage browning. While the sausage is browning, slice up the garlic and mushrooms. Then add everything together and create the quick, creamy sauce. By the time noodles are cooked al dente, it will be time to add them right to the sausage and mushroom sauce!
• If you’re looking to save time on the prep of this recipe, buy pre-sliced baby Bella mushrooms! They’re usually only slightly more expensive and will save you a few minutes of prep time!

Substitutions

• Use whatever kind of pasta you have on hand. I like to use rigatoni because the creamy sauce easily coats every nook and cranny of the tubular pasta. However, you could also use:
  • penne
  • bowtie
  • fettuccine
  • linguine
  • rotini
• If you prefer not to cook with wine, or don’t have any on hand you can use veggie/chicken broth in place of the wine. The flavor will be slightly different, but the main objective of the wine besides its flavor is to thin out the sauce a bit, which chicken broth will achieve. In the same vein, the alcohol from the wine will cook off right away, so it is totally safe for kids to eat!
• You can use ground beef in place of the pork sausage in this recipe. I love the fat and flavor that pork sausage adds to this dish, but I realize that it’s not always something everyone has in their fridge. Ground beef is going to taste great in this mushroom pasta as well. It gives the dish a bit more of a stroganoff flavor, which is never a bad thing!
• You could also use Italian pork sausage or Italian turkey sausage in this recipe in place of the regular pork sausage. Italian sausage is going to be seasoned already, so I would cut the amount of oregano and thyme in half so the herby flavor isn’t too overpowering.

Family Favorite Pastas

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