Quick and Easy Penne With Sausage, Mushroom Cream Sauce

Scoop01's Note:

A slight variation from a Bon Appetite recipe from March 2000. It is made in under 30 minutes - perfect for a weekday meal yet satisfying enough to serve to friends for a casual weekend meal.

• Total Time: 30 mins
• Prep Time: 30 mins
• Cook Time: 0 mins

Ingredients:

Servings: 4

• 1 lb sweet sausage, casings removed
• 3/4 lb baby portabella mushrooms, chopped & sliced
• 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
• 3/4 cup canned reduced-sodium chicken broth
• 3/4 cup whipping cream
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 lb penne
• 1 cup fresh parmesan cheese, grated

Directions:

1. In a large skillet, over medium heat saute sausage (casings removed) until crumbled and brown.
2. Remove to a paper towel-lined dish with a slotted spoon.
3. Add butter, mushrooms and crushed red pepper to same skillet and saute in sausage drippings.
4. Cover, cook until mushrooms are tender - about 5 minutes.
5. Add chicken broth and whipping cream to skillet - reduce heat to low. Occasionally stirring as sauce thickens.
6. In different pot, cook pasta according to directions on box. Drain pasta. Return to same pot.
7. Add sausage, mushroom mixture, and cheese to pasta.
8. Toss over medium heat, until pasta is coated and sauce begins to thicken.
9. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
10. **Add more chicken broth if sauce seems dry.

Reviews

[HEP MEP]

Yum! Made this last night since it was just the two of us. (Kiddo likes Italian sausage, but not IN things...go figure...) Anyway. I followed your recipe except I added a little onion and green pepper in with the mushrooms, and I used linquine instead of penne. We both scarfed down two helpings! Thanks!

[saylaveev]

I made this recipe for myself, DH and BIL and his daughter. I doubled the recipe to make enough for lunches the next day. We all enjoyed it, except that due to pickyness of 4 year old I left her to have just noodles with plain sauce and a single sausage. The rest of us dove in and had multiple servings. We will make this again. I found that for my preferance I would rather do the sauce by itself to keep it that nice white color. I also had to add cornstarch because I had to use Soy Cream (DH's problem) which meant it wouldn't thickened as planned. It was still tasty, although probably a bit sweeter than it should have been. I also found it took a little longer to cook than stated but not deteringly so. An enjoyable meal.

[Michelle S.]

Fantastic! I did double the sauce ingredients, and a little less than halved the pasta. This way the sauce was "just" enough. I added a deiced onion to the mushroom step, and had hot italian sausage on hand so I skipped the pepper flakes with still getting the heat. This is absolutely decadent. The worst thing is waiting for the sauce to thicken! It was SO hard,, but the wait was SO worth it. Thank you for sharing this....the family loved it.