Penne Rigate with Chicken Sausage

After making the Spinach Ricotta Bites this weekend, we were left with over half a container of ricotta left.  My Italian senses started tingling and told me to make a pasta dish out of the remaining ricotta (a good Italian girl will never let ricotta go to waste!).  I whipped this up last night for dinner while Jake played in his pay room, it was easy to put together for a week night option and leaves our family of 3 leftovers for tonight too.  This dish was highly approved by Jacob, it was one of those dishes where he just puts his head down powers through it by shoving it in his mouth as fast as possible only to look back up when finished.  Jake ate at least a cup of it.  I’m pretty sure when it comes to pasta dinners, he stores it in his hollow leg because I’m amazed at how much he can actually eat.  This dish is highly toddler approved (and again, mommy and daddy approved too!)

Ingredients List

1 lb Penne Rigate

1 28oz can whole tomatoes, we use Muir Glen Organic Whole Peeled Tomatoes

3 tablespoon Olive Oil (2 tablespoon for pasta, 1 tablespoon for sausage)

1 small yellow onion, chopped

3 garlic cloves, put through garlic press, or minced

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4  teaspoon pepper

1/8 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes (optional)

1/2  teaspoon oregano or pasta sprinkle

3 Mild Italian Chicken Sausage, removed from casing.   We used Nature’s Promise Chicken Sausage

1 cup Ricotta (low fat or full fat)

1.  Heat 2 tablespoon olive oil in a large sauce pan until warm, add the onion and cook 5 -6 minutes on medium heat until the onions start to become translucent.  Once the onions are done cooking, add the garlic and stir for 30 seconds until fragrant.  Add the whole tomatoes, salt, pepper, pepper flakes (if using) and oregano.  Breakup the tomatoes by using a potato masher and press the tomatoes.  Keep doing this frequently during the cooking process to break up the large tomato pieces.  Simmer uncovered for 30 – 45 minutes. 

2. While the tomatoes cook, place additional 1 tablespoon olive oil in pan until hot, then add chicken sausage.  The sausage will be sticky at the beginning, so  let it brown a little bit before staring to break it up and crumble the sausage.  While the sausage cooks, continually smash it with a wooden spoon to break it into small pieces.  Once the sausage is done cooking thoroughly, add it directly to the tomatoes sauce.  The chicken sausage rendered little to no fat, so there was no need to drain it before adding it to the tomato sauce. 

3. Once the sausage is added to the tomato sauce, bring water to a boil and cook pasta until al dente.

4. About 2 minutes before the pasta is done, take the tomato sauce off the heat and stir in the ricotta.  Keep the sauce off the heat.

5. When pasta is done cooking, drain then stir in all of the tomato sauce.  Serve immediately. 

Enjoy!!