Balsamic is such a great flavor that often gets over looked when it comes to weeknight family meals. It is a stronger flavor, but when you add it to a cream sauce you get the boldness along with a velvety pasta dish. Adding in the mushrooms and Italian sausage comes together to make a delightful one-pot dinner for your family to enjoy. Balsamic Sausage & Pasta is simple to make and easy to enjoy!
Be sure that you are using balsamic vinegar and not glaze for this recipe. You are essentially making your own balsamic glaze with the honey and vinegar combo, so using glaze and honey would be a little too sweet. If you can only find or already have balsamic glaze, you can use it by omitting the honey and increasing the total to 1 cup.
The cavatappi pasta is perfect for this meal, especially if you can find the kind that has ridges, they really hold onto the sauce and give you the full flavor all in one bite. Cooking the pasta in the balsamic and broth mixture gives it a delicious extra layer of flavor. For the broth – I used chicken broth because it was what I already had on hand. You could use vegetable broth or beef broth – it will only change the flavor of the final dish slightly, since the sausage is likely pork.
Speaking of the sausage, I used Italian sausage links that I cooked through and then cut into pieces. This was to keep larger chunks of the sausage in the final dish. If you are not able to find link sausages, you could use ground sausage. Cook and crumble until no longer pink. Then remove and continue with recipe as listed below.
Now Let’s Get Cookin’!
Balsamic Sausage & Pasta
Ingredients
- 1½ lb Italian sausage
- 2 tbsp Butter
- 4 Garlic Cloves minced
- 8 oz White Mushrooms sliced
- 1 tsp Rosemary
- 1 tsp Italian Seasoning
- ¾ cup Balsamic Vinegar
- ½ cup Honey
- 1 qt Broth chicken, vegetable or beef
- 1 lb Cavatappi Pasta
- 1 cup Heavy Cream
- 1 cup Parmesan Cheese shredded
- 1 cup Mozzarella Cheese
Instructions
- In a large pot over medium-high heat, add sausages and cook until no longer pink. Remove from pan and cut into ¾ inch rounds.
- In the same pan add butter. Once melted, reduce heat to medium and add garlic, mushrooms, rosemary and Italian seasoning. Let saute for 5 minutes. Return cut sausage to pan.
- Combine balsamic vinegar, honey and broth. Add mixture to pan, along with pasta.
- Stir to combine. Bring just a to a boil. Reduce heat to medium low and cover with lid. Let cook for 20 minutes.
- Remove lid and stir in cream, parmesan and mozzarella. Stir to combine and replace lid for 5 minutes.
Custom Instacart Link for this Recipe
Estelle Forrest self-published this cookbook after a lot of playing around in the kitchen. You can purchase your own copy here:
AVAILABLE IN PRINT OR KINDLE eBOOK VERSIONS
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Oh this looks amazing! We are big pasta fans in our house so this would go down a treat! Thanks so much for sharing with #MMBC. Hope to see you next week. 🙂