Cheesy Sausage and Pepper Pasta

by Sabrina Snyder

Last Update:

12 Comments

5 from 6 votes
4 servings
Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 15 minutes
Total Time 30 minutes
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Homemade Sausage and Pepper Pasta is made with an easy homemade marinara sauce. Even kids will approve of this dinner, ready in 30 minutes!

We love cheesy Italian recipes at home like our Ultimate Meat Lasagna, Easy Chicken Parmesan and my favorite Shrimp Scampi which we could eat every day of our lives.

Sabrina’s Cheesy Sausage and Pepper Pasta Recipe

A hearty dinner that the whole family will enjoy. It is quick and easy to make and even one that you could let the kids help with too! Include a made-from-scratch sauce and you’ve got a winning, easy, quick pasta dinner on your hands.

Recipe Card

Dinner, then Dessert

Sausage and Pepper Pasta Recipe

Homemade Sausage and Pepper Pasta is made with an easy homemade marinara sauce. Even kids will approve of this dinner, ready in 30 minutes!
Yield 4 servings
Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 15 minutes
Total Time 30 minutes
Course Main Dish
Cuisine Italian
Author Sabrina Snyder
Pasta in a green pan
PrintRate

Ingredients
 

  • 8 ounces gemelli pasta
  • 2 tablespoon olive oil
  • 1 pound ground pork
  • 1 tablespoons ground fennel
  • 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
  • 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
  • 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
  • 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
  • 1/4 teaspoon coarse ground black pepper
  • 3 cloves garlic minced
  • 1 yellow onion chopped
  • 1 red bell pepper chopped
  • 1 green bell pepper chopped
  • 4 cups marinara sauce
  • 1 cup mozzarella cheese cubed

Instructions

  • Cook the pasta one minute shy of the directions, drain, and do not rinse.
  • Add the olive oil to a large skillet on medium-high heat along with the ground pork, fennel, red pepper flakes, oregano, thyme, salt, black pepper, garlic, and onion and cook for 5-6 minutes, until cooked through, stirring occasionally.
  • Add in the bell peppers and cook for an additional 2-3 minutes until softened, stir in the marinara sauce and pasta, top with mozzarella cheese and serve.

Nutrition

Calories: 538kcal | Carbohydrates: 21g | Protein: 30g | Fat: 38g | Saturated Fat: 14g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 4g | Monounsaturated Fat: 18g | Cholesterol: 104mg | Sodium: 1698mg | Potassium: 1272mg | Fiber: 6g | Sugar: 12g | Vitamin A: 2349IU | Vitamin C: 83mg | Calcium: 233mg | Iron: 4mg

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About this Recipe

Sausage and Pepper Pasta made from scratch… well everything is from scratch except the pasta and the cheese. We can climb those hills another day. We do make the sausage from scratch along with the marinara sauce, using my Quick and Easy Marinara Sauce, which is a recipe you will absolutely want to bookmark immediately.

Key Ingredients

  • Italian Sausage: I chose to make my own because making sausage at home is as easy as using the ground spices sitting unloved in your cabinet.

How to Make Italian Sausage

  • Add ground pork to a large skillet with olive oil.
  • Add crushed red pepper, salt, pepper, oregano, thyme, and fennel.
  • If using fennel seeds, toast them before adding them.
  • If making sausages, mix seasonings into ground pork before cooking.

Recipe Tips & Tricks

  • If your making your own Marinara the key is to make sure you don’t let it reduce too much or when it sits after you take it off the heat, your pasta won’t be as saucy. Tomato sauce will thicken as it sits. Remember to remove it from the heat while it is still just a bit saucier than you want to serve it.
  • I highly recommend when you make homemade marinara sauce you make the recipe in a bigger batch and freeze your extra portions. We make our homemade recipe x6 and keep the portions for later, so this recipe only takes 30 minutes from start to finish.

What to Pair With

If you want to make this a perfect, easy Italian meal serve it with my Olive Garden Italian Salad and Garlic Bread for a great meal the whole family will love.

Variations

  • Sausage- You can use pre-made pork sausage in your recipe if you would like. You can also cook Italian Sausage links and slice the sausage into the pasta to serve it with pieces of sausage. I prefer crumbles of sausage to slices, but that’s just personal preference.
  • Marinara- When it comes to choosing which marinara sauce to use you can choose to use a jarred variety or use my Homemade Marinara Recipe.
  • Cheese- You can use shredded cheese or cubed cheese, the options are yours to make. The reason we used cubed mozzarella cheese in this recipe is because while the cubes of cheese sit in the pasta for a few minutes before serving they make small melted pools of mozzarella, but they don’t overwhelm the whole dish.

More Pasta Dishes

cheesy sausage & pepper skillet pasta

About the Author: Sabrina Snyder

Sabrina is a professionally trained Private Chef of over 10 years with ServSafe Manager certification in food safety. She creates all the recipes here on Dinner, then Dessert, fueled in no small part by her love for bacon.

Sabrina Snyder is a professionally trained personal and private chef of over 10 years who is the creator and developer of all the recipes on Dinner, then Dessert.

She is also the author of the cookbook Dinner, then Dessert – Satisfying Meals Using Only 3, 5 or 7 Ingredients, published by Harper Collins.

She started Dinner, then Dessert as a business in her office as a lunch service for her coworkers who admired her lunches before going to culinary school and becoming a full time personal chef and private chef.

As a personal chef Sabrina would cook for families one day a week and cook their entire week of dinners. All grocery shopping, cooking and cleaning was done along with instructions on reheating. As a private chef she cooked for private parties and cooked in family homes in the evenings for families on a nightly basis after working as a personal chef during the day.

Sabrina has been certified as a ServSafe Manager since 2007 and was a longstanding member of the USPCA Personal Chef Association including being on the board of the Washington DC Chapter of Chefs in the US Personal Chef Association when they won Chapter of the year.

As a member of the community of food website creators Sabrina Snyder has spoken at many conferences regarding her experiences as a food writer including the Indulge Food Conference, Everything Food Conference, Haven Food Conference and IACP Annual Food Professionals Conference.

Sabrina lives with her family in sunny California.

See more posts by Sabrina

Dinner, then Dessert, Inc. owns the copyright on all images and text and does not allow for its original recipes and pictures to be reproduced anywhere other than at this site unless authorization is given. Read my disclosure and copyright policy. This post may contain affiliate links.

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Comments

  1. If this recipe is even half as good as the Encrusted Garlic Pork Loin recipe that I made a few weeks ago ( which was EXCELLENT!), It will be fabulous! Sabrina’s recipes are all simply WONDERFUL- I love the web site and appreciate everything that she does in creating these FANTASTIC recipes!! ” Thank You Sabrina, from your biggest fan in Colorado.

    Reply

  6. This looks wonderful! My family loves pasta, especially with chunks of cheese! Can’t wait to try!

    Reply