Rigatoni with sausage and spinach
Big tubes of pasta in a rich sausage tomato sauce with spinach stirred right in.
- 35 min total
- 25 min hands-on
- Follow-a-recipe easy
- Serves 4
- About $3.23 a serving
- 970 calories
- Good the next day
Dolly says: Make the full amount. It’s just as good for lunch the next day.
Ingredients
For 4 servings.
- 1 lb italian sausage, casings removed
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 can crushed tomatoes
- 1 lb rigatoni
- 5 oz baby spinach
- ½ cup grated parmesan, plus more to serve
- ¼ cup fresh basil, torn (optional)
From your pantry
- 1 tbsp salt
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- ¼ tsp red pepper flakes (optional)
Each serving has about 970 calories, 39 g protein, 104 g carbs and 45 g fat, and costs about $3.23 at typical US grocery prices. Both are estimates from what the recipe uses.
Missing something?
- No crushed tomatoes? Diced tomatoes work.
- No rigatoni? Penne works.
- No baby spinach? Kale or arugula works.
- No grated parmesan? Parmesan wedge works.
Steps
Tap an underlined word for a quick explanation.
Fill a large pot with water, add 1 tablespoon salt, cover, and on high.
Bring to a boil. It means heating a liquid on high until it’s fully boiling before you move on. A lid on the pot gets it there faster, which makes it a good moment to chop something.
How you’ll know: Big bubbles break all over the surface, and they keep coming when you lift the lid.
High heat
Heat the oil in a large, deep over medium-high. Squeeze the sausage out of its casings into the pan and break it into small pieces with a spoon.
Skillet. A skillet is a frying pan: wide and flat with low, sloped sides. The shape lets steam escape, so food browns instead of stewing.
How you’ll know: It’s the pan you’d fry an egg in, and a 10 or 12 inch one handles most recipes.
Medium-high heat
Dolly’s tip: Snip the end of each link and squeeze it out like toothpaste. Bulk sausage skips this step.Cook 6 to 8 minutes, stirring only every minute or two, until all over with no pink left.
Brown. Browning means cooking until the outside turns brown, which is where a lot of savory flavor comes from. Give food room and time without stirring, or it steams and stays gray.
How you’ll know: The food looks brown rather than gray, and the kitchen smells toasty and savory.
Medium-high heatTimer: 7 min
Food safety: Raw pork sausage is done at 160°F and raw chicken or turkey sausage at 165°F. Precooked sausage just needs heating until hot all the way through.
Turn the heat to medium, add the garlic and pepper flakes, and stir 30 seconds, .
Fragrant. Fragrant means cooking until you can clearly smell it, usually garlic or spices, often in about 30 seconds. That’s the moment the flavor is ready, just before it can burn.
How you’ll know: You can smell it from a step back, and garlic is pale gold, not brown.
Medium heat
Pour in the crushed tomatoes, , then turn the heat to low and let it bubble gently while the pasta cooks.
Simmer. Simmering means keeping a liquid just below a boil, with small bubbles rising gently. It cooks food evenly and lets a sauce thicken without scorching on the bottom.
How you’ll know: Small, lazy bubbles break the surface every second or so, and nothing is churning.
Low heat
Add the rigatoni to the boiling water and cook 1 minute less than the package says, stirring now and then, until .
Al dente. Al dente is Italian for “to the tooth”: pasta cooked until tender but with a slight firm bite in the center. It holds up in sauce and keeps softening a little after you drain it.
How you’ll know: Bite a piece a minute before the package time: tender, with a slight firm bite in the middle and no crunch.
High heatTimer: 11 min
Stir the spinach into the sauce a handful at a time until it .
Wilt. Wilting means cooking leafy greens just until they go soft and collapse. Greens shrink a lot, so a big pile of spinach becomes a small handful, and that’s normal.
How you’ll know: The leaves turn soft and deep green and slump into the pan, usually within a minute or two.
Low heat
Dolly’s tip: It looks like far too much. It shrinks to almost nothing in a minute.Scoop out a mug of , the rigatoni, and return it to the pot. Pour in the sauce and parmesan with of the water.
Reserve pasta water. It means scooping out a cup of the starchy cooking water before you drain the pasta. A splash helps the sauce cling and turn silky, and it’s the step everyone forgets.
How you’ll know: A mug of cloudy water is sitting by the stove before the pasta goes into the colander.
Drain. Draining means pouring off liquid, like tipping pasta into a colander or spooning extra fat out of the pan. Pour hot grease into a can or jar, not the sink, where it hardens and clogs the pipes.
How you’ll know: Only a few drips are left, and the food isn’t sitting in a puddle.
Splash. A splash is a small, quick pour, about a teaspoon to a tablespoon. It’s there to loosen or brighten a dish, so the exact amount doesn’t matter.
How you’ll know: The dish looks a little looser or tastes a little brighter, not soupy.
over low heat for 1 minute, until the sauce clings to every tube, then serve with basil and more parmesan.
Toss. Tossing means gently lifting and turning food so everything gets coated, like pasta in sauce or vegetables in oil. It coats every piece evenly without mashing anything.
How you’ll know: Every piece looks glossy or evenly coated, with no dry spots hiding underneath.
Low heat
Plan this in Dollop, and get the grocery list
Dollop puts this dinner on a night that suits your week, lists only what you still need to buy, and walks you through each step while you cook.
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