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This is the best weeknight pasta

This sausage garlic parmesan pasta is probably the best thing you can make with only 5 ingredients and 15 minutes. It’s easily as good as any $25 plate of pasta you’d get at a nice Italian restaurant, assuming any survive this COVID-19 crisis. Besides being super easy, you can endlessly riff on this basic recipe with different kinds of sausages, cured meats, or fresh pasta.

How to make garlic parmesan pasta

Garlic parmesan pasta is an incredible base for making up your own weeknight variations. All great italian sauces basically start with garlic and end with a very heavy dusting of parmesan anyway. The trick is what you put in the middle, which can range from nothing to expensive slow braised cuts of meat. In this version, we use Tuscan sausage, which is a fatty uncured sausage you can usually find at any grocery store meat department. It’s a good starting point because it’s already flavored and spiced, so we don’t need to spend time slow braising or finding dozens of dried and fresh herbs and spices. The fat from the sausage renders out to emusify with the pasta water and cheese to form a deliciously rich and meaty sauce that you won’t believe only took about 15 minutes to make.

The best pasta dishes are the simple ones

Over the many hundreds of years Italians have been making pasta, the process to make a simple, quick, and rustic (yet dreamily delicious) sauce has been refined into a few basic steps that you can use to make any pasta dish: start with a fat, ideally olive oil, add some aromatics like garlic or soffritto, then add your meat. Once your meat is browned, add your liquid of choice, reduce, and add some cheese and just-undercooked pasta. Finish the pasta by swirling gently until a thick and creamy sauce forms, and molto buono, you’ve got dinner in under 15 minutes.

Pasta tips and tricks

1. Follow these simple tips and tricks to get restaurant quality pasta:
2. Use high quality fresh or bronze extruded dried pasta
3. Salt your pasta water, it makes your actual pasta taste good
4. Add pasta to already boiling water, set a timer and cook 1 minute before the package time, and finish in the sauce
5. Always pre-grate your cheese so you know you’ve got enough
6. Splurge on the authentic Italian cheese with laser printed rinds
7. Look for Parmigiano Reggiano, it makes a huge difference.

Weeknight Garlic and Parmesan Pasta with Sausages

A restaurant-level 5 ingredient, 15 minute weeknight pasta recipe

Serves 2

5 from 6 votes

Prep Time 5 minutes mins

Cook Time 10 minutes mins

Total Time 15 minutes mins

Ingredients

• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 6 oz pasta of choice 2 portions
• 2 links Tuscan sausage or other fresh sausage
• 8 cloves garlic peeled and sliced
• 1 tbsp dried chili flakes optional
• 2 cups Parmigiano Reggiano cheese finely grated

Instructions

• Bring a pot of salted water to a boil. Cook the pasta in salted water, using a timer. Cook 1 mins before the time on the package.
  
• While the pasta is cooking, heat up some olive oil in a nonstick skillet over medium heat. Fry the sausage in little balls or break up into pieces with a wooden spoon.
  
• When the sausages are browned and crisp, add garlic and chili flakes, if using. Fry until crispy and fragrant.
  
• Add 2 cups of pasta water to the pan and swirl. Once reduced by about half, remove from the heat until the pasta timer goes off, then add the almost al dente pasta to the skillet and turn the heat back up to high.
  
• Swirl the pasta until al dente and a thick sauce has formed and coated each strand or piece of pasta. Add the cheese, then stir lightly to melt. Serve immediately, topped with more parmesan.