Spicy Sausage Pasta and Broccoli

It isn't often that you find a recipe that replaces one that you love but I think we may have found one. We have a delicious pasta, sausage and broccoli recipe that is absolutely delicious. I was perusing the weekly Secret Recipe Club recipes a couple of weeks ago and someone had recreated this. I Went back to the original recipe and wanted to make it. We finally got around to it on Friday.




Not a lot of ingredients and we have enough for four servings each. So the freezer is now stocked for those handy weeknight meals when there isn't time too cook.

Spicy Pasta with Broccoli and Sausage
Recipe Courtesy of Fried Rice and Donut Holes

6 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1/3 cup olive oil
4 cups broccoli, chopped
1 pound Italian sausage, casings removed (we used the hot version)
1 cup reserved pasta water
1/2 cup white wine
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese, grated
1 pound Orecchiette pasta (I used small shells)
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper

Cook pasta according to directions. Drain reserving 1 cup of water. In pan over medium high heat brown the sausage, breaking it up as it cooks. Drain off any grease. Meanwhile in a separate pan over medium high heat cook the garlic in oil for about a minute, stirring until golden. Add broccoli, wine, 1/2 cup reserved water, red pepper flakes, salt and pepper. Cover the pan and cook, stirring occasionally, until the broccoli is tender and liquid is mostly evaporated. Add the sausage and pasta to broccoli mixture and toss to combine. Add the other half cup of water if it needs thinning. Stir in Parmesan cheese and serve.

I tried to do all this by myself but needed dans help at one point because I needed to do three things at once. I started cooking my pasta first. Since no matter how hard I look I can never find orecchiette pasta I used small shells. Dang oklahoma. I also started cooking the sausage because I wasn't sure how long it would take. Once I knew the sausage would be done I started the broccoli. I took the water from the pasta as it was cooking since it wasn't done. It was an awful lot of liquid and I knew it would never be all absorbed if I wanted my broccoli to have any sense of crispness (mushy broccoli is not served in my house). So decided when the broccoli was done to just add the other ingredients and the pasta would absorb some water. And sure enough that worked. We had to get a huge bowl in order to mix the three parts though. Wow did this make a ton. With the hot sausage and red pepper flakes you have to like spicy food to like this. You could use the mild sausage if you wanted to cut the heat back some.