Tortellini With Turkey Sausage in Creamy Butternut Apple Sage

Rita~'s Note:

A Turkey dinner! Yes! Turkey sausage with butternut, apples, onions and cranberries. Flavored with crisp sage and garlic. For a quick and easy method look here Pureed Squash Butternut, Acorn Any Hard Winter Squash!. The sausage can be removed from the casing and crumbled and cooked.

• Total Time: 1 hrs
• Prep Time: 30 mins
• Cook Time: 30 mins

Ingredients:

Servings: 10

• 1 lb turkey sausage (Hot or mild)
• olive oil
• 8 fresh sage leaves
• 1 large onion, quartered and sliced
• 1 small apple, cored and thinly sliced
• 1/4 cup dried cranberries
• 5 garlic cloves, sliced thinly
• 1/2 teaspoon seasoning salt
• 1 pinch cinnamon
• 1 cup apple juice
• 1 cup pureed butternut squash or 1 cup canned pumpkin
• 1/2 cup cream
• 2 lbs cheese tortellini, cooked accord to package

Directions:

1. Spray a large hot frying pan with non stick spray. Place links in and cook for 15 minutes till brown, remove from pan and set aside.
2. In pan add olive oil and brown sage leaves till crisp and remove all set 6 aside fro garnish. Crumble 2 leaves.
3. Add additional oil if needed to saute the onions for 3 minutes over medium heat, stirring to remove the brown bits of goodness from pan, add apple slices, the 2 crumbled sage leaves, garlic and seasoned salt, cinnamon and cook for 1 minute.
4. Add apple juice and cranberries to onion mixture, bring to a boil then lower to a simmer for 5 minutes over medium heat.
5. Meanwhile slice sausage.
6. Stir the butternut and cream into the onion mixture.
7. Add sausage stir and reduce heat to a low simmer.
8. Toss cooked tortellini in to sausage mixture add some pasta water if needed to thin sauce. Season with salt and pepper.
9. Garnish with sage leaves.

Reviews

[spanica]

Yum! I made some changes, but I think the essence of the recipe remained intact. Here's what I did: I used kielbasa-type turkey sausage, so no links involved. I used dried sage instead of fresh as that was what I had on hand. I used fresh cranberries instead of dried, and I used chicken broth instead of apple juice. I don't like food as sweet as most people, so I think those last two changes were essential for my palette. Finally, I skipped the seasoned salt and used regular salt instead. Thanks for posting such a great recipe! I will certainly be making it again.

[Mama's Kitchen (Hope)]

This was a really tasty dish! Yes, it was a little on the sweet side however it is going to be with the ingredients! To make it less sweet you could replace all or some of the apple juice with chicken broth. I did not read this as closely as I should before I went to the grocery so I picked up unstuffed turkey sausage- so the meat was in ground meat form rather than links. I used a granny smith apple here bc it was not specified which to use. I also used butternut puree. Thanks for sharing your creation Rita!

[*kara*intn]

This was not a hit in our house, sadly. I think it came out too sweet because of the apple juice and apple. I used pumpkin instead of squash. My husband and son couldn't eat more than a bite. I thought it was ok, but wouldn't make again.