Bring Italy to your dinner table. Italian sausage is combined together with rigatoni pasta, garlic, Italian seasoning, cream, marinara sauce (or any other tomato pasta sauce), and a sprinkle of red pepper flakes and fresh herbs on top. The flavor combination is amazing.
This simple rigatoni dinner is made in 30 minutes and is perfect for busy weeknights or as a weekend meal.
Cleanup is a breeze. Everything is cooked in one pan on the stovetop, so the cleanup is minimal.
What is rigatoni?
Rigatoni is a tube-shaped short pasta with ridges down its length.
This type of pasta originated in Italy, and the word rigatoni comes from the Italian word rigate which means ridged or lined.
Rigatoni is one of the most favorite pasta dishes in Sicily, Italy, where it is often used in the traditional Sicilian dish Pasta Alla Norma (sautéed eggplant tossed with tomato sauce and topped with ricotta salata cheese and basil).
Rigatoni recipes usually involve thick sauces, such as bolognese or a rich alfredo sauce.
What is a good substitute for rigatoni?
Because both rigatoni and penne are tubular-shaped short pasta, penne is your next best choice. Do keep in mind that pasta with ridges, such as rigatoni, is better for thick sauces like the creamy tomato sauce in this recipe because the sauce will stick better to the outside surface with ridges. So if you are to use penne, make sure you use penne with ridges.
How long to cook rigatoni?
It’s best to cook rigatoni al dente. To cook pasta al dente means to cook the pasta so that it’s soft yet firm at the core of the noodle. The pasta cooked al dente should feel firm to the bite, hard under your teeth, while being soft yet not mushy.
To achieve this desirable pasta texture you normally have to boil pasta 2 to 3 minutes shorter than normal. For instance, if your package instructions tell you to cook pasta for 12 minutes in boiling water that means that to cook your pasta al dente, you should cook it for 10 minutes (2 minutes less) once the water starts boiling.
What kind of sausage to use?
Crumbled Italian Sausage. I used 15 oz of crumbled mild Italian sausage. I used the mild kind but only because my local grocery store was out of spicy Italian sausage. This recipe tastes good with some spice in it!
Italian sausage links. You can also use Italian sausage in casings. I would remove the casings and slice the sausage.
Chicken or turkey sausage is another great option.
Beyond Sausage, a brand is a great option for a plant-based, vegetarian version.
The Directions – How to make sausage rigatoni
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