Italian Sausage Pasta with Fresh Tomato, Basil and Pecorino

This is the pasta I create each August when the tomato plants finally get their act together and I end up with an overabundance of tomatoes. Sweet Italian sausage, a flurry of freshly chopped tomatoes, basil, and what we like to call “the pecorino romano moment.” Everything is made in 1 skillet and under 30 minutes, with a pound of penne. Honestly, this is the simplest of the simple and requires minimal effort (aside from timing the tomato harvest and a quick trip to the store for the sausage and cheese of course!)

The original recipe came from Cooking Light, and I’ve made it enough times to know exactly where the tricky spots are. The sausage needs to be fully crumbled and cooked before the tomatoes go in, and the tomatoes only need two minutes — enough to soften and release their juice, but not so long they turn into sauce. I did a little tinkering to get it to the point I shared it with you. Now, if I can get it to the point that I can share it with you in a few days, I’ll have hit the goal for the week. As for the title, the phrase is fairly common and could probably use a little more specificity. An empty plate will say a lot. So, if I say An Empty Plate Means No Food What is that telling you? An empty plate or an empty bowl. It could be deceiving. It could be full of food. Or it could be empty, just like my dreams. Or it could be empty if I eat a lot of food on a slammable plate. So, an empty plate could be interesting. Or it could also mean An Empty Bowl.

Why This One Is Worth Making

• Everything finishes at the same time. The pasta cooks while the sausage and vegetables come together in the skillet. You drain the pasta and immediately toss it in. No waiting, no cold noodles.
• Fresh tomatoes do the heavy lifting. No canned tomatoes, no jarred sauce. The juice from the tomatoes as they cook creates just enough liquid to coat the pasta without making it soupy.
• Pecorino, not Parmesan. Pecorino Romano is sharper and saltier than Parmesan, and it holds up against the sausage in a way Parmesan can’t quite manage. Some of it goes in while the pan is hot (it melts slightly and clings), and the rest goes on top at the end.
• One skillet after the pasta pot. The dish itself comes together in a single large nonstick skillet. Cleanup is straightforward.
• It scales easily. Double everything for a bigger crowd. The ratios hold.

What to Know Before You Start

With this recipe, cooking moves quickly and efficiently once the sausage is in the pan. You will want to have everything prepped and ready before you start cooking. You can chop your tomatoes, slice your onions, mince your garlic, tear your basil and leave it all in a bowl. You will want to work quickly, as you only have a street four minutes to complete the steps before the garlic is added and the recipe is wrapped up.

The fresh summer tomatoes you use should be ripe and soft. These tomatoes are the one thing in this recipe that will actually be seasonal. Mealy, pale, and insipid grocery store tomatoes will yield a completely different result. If you are making this recipe when fresh summer tomatoes are not in season, fresh canned tomatoes (drained) will be better than a fresh grocery store tomato.

It may seem like a lot 1 1/4 pounds of tomatoes but don’t be tricked into thinking you should decrease the quantity. It cooks down quickly.

Ingredients

• 8 oz uncooked penne pasta — Standard penne rigate (the ridged kind) holds the sauce better than smooth penne. Cook it to al dente; it will finish softening when you toss it with the hot skillet ingredients.
• 2 tsp olive oil — Just enough to get the pan coated. The sausage will release its own fat as it cooks.
• 8 oz sweet Italian sausage — Remove the casings if it came in links. Bulk Italian sausage works too. If you want more heat, use hot Italian sausage — the rest of the recipe doesn’t change.
• 1 cup vertically sliced onion — “Vertically sliced” just means cut from root to tip into thin half-moon strips rather than crosswise rings. It softens faster and blends into the dish better.
• 2 tsp minced garlic — About 2 medium cloves. Fresh is worth it here.
• 1 1/4 lbs fresh summer tomatoes, chopped — Any variety works. Cherry tomatoes halved, roma tomatoes rough-chopped, garden tomatoes in whatever shape they come. Aim for roughly 3/4-inch pieces.
• 6 Tbsp grated fresh Pecorino Romano, divided — Grate it yourself if you can. Pre-grated is fine but tends to be drier. You’ll use 2 Tbsp stirred in at the end and the remaining 4 Tbsp sprinkled on top.
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/8 tsp black pepper
• 1/4 cup torn fresh basil leaves — Torn, not chopped. Goes on at the very end, off heat, so it stays bright green and fragrant.

How to Make It

Step 1: Start cooking the pasta. Boil some water in a large pot and cook the penne according to the instructions on the box. (You should not add salt to the water.) (The Pecorino Romano cheese will be salty enough for you not to need salted pasta water.) You want the penne to finish cooking around the same time the skillet is ready, so start planning the time. When done, Drain the pasta and set it aside.

Step 2: Cook the sausage and onion. Grab a large nonstick skillet and set the heat to medium-high. If you have sausage links, you can squeeze them out of the casing straight into the skillet — or just cut the casing off and crumble the sausage. Drizzle some olive oil into the pan and add the sausage and sliced onion together. Stir and break the sausage apart evenly throughout the pan as it cooks for about 4 minutes. You want there to be no pink left in the sausage, and for the onion to be softened and beginning to look translucent. The smell at this point is pretty good.

Step 3: Add garlic. Add minced garlic to the sausage and onion mixture. Stir and cook for 2 minutes. Keep stirring — garlic burns fast at medium-high heat, and burned garlic is bitter. After 2 minutes the garlic should smell cooked and fragrant, not sharp.

Step 4: Now add the tomatoes. For the next two minutes, stir the chopped tomatoes until they start to soften and release some juice. The pan might look wetter than you were expecting. That is the liquid from the tomatoes, and it will coat the pasta. Do not cook them for more than two minutes. You want them to be soft and juicy, and not completely broken down.

Step 5: Remove the skillet from the heat. Add the drained pasta, 2 tablespoons of the Pecorino Romano, and salt and pepper to your liking. Mix to combine. The heat will melt the cheese, allowing the ingredients to meld.

Step 6: Complete and Serve – Portion into bowls Add torn basil and the remaining Pecorino Romano (about 1 tbsp of cheese for each serving). It is best to serve as soon as possible.

A Tool That Actually Helps

A meat chopper tool can be one of the best tools for breaking apart sausage; they chop the meat into tiny, uniform pieces, and do so much faster than the wooden spoons most people use. I have had mine for years and it is still going strong. Although it is not an absolute must, I can still recommend it. There’s no way it can be considered a bad purchase; especially if fighting off clumps of ground meat is a regular obstacle in your life.

Helpful Tips

• Don’t overcook the tomatoes. Two minutes is exactly right. The goal is to warm them through and get them to release their juice, not to cook them into a sauce. This is a fresh tomato dish, not a cooked sauce dish.
• Pull the pan off the heat before adding pasta. The pasta will cook a little more from residual heat, and you don’t want it to get mushy. Off-heat is the move.
• Taste before adding salt. Pecorino Romano is quite salty. Depending on the brand and how much you use, you may not need the full 1/4 tsp — taste the finished dish before seasoning.
• Grate the cheese fresh if you can. The difference between fresh-grated and the stuff in the green can is significant here. Pre-grated Pecorino from the deli section is a fine middle ground.
• Hot Italian sausage works great. If you like heat, swap the sweet sausage for hot. Everything else stays the same. The tomatoes and basil balance the heat well.
• Vertically sliced onion matters. Slicing from root to tip gives you strips that cook down into the dish rather than staying as distinct rings. It’s a small thing but it changes the texture.

Serving Ideas

This pasta is hearty enough to be a meal on its own. If you’d like to complete the meal:

• A simple green salad with lemon and olive oil
• Crusty bread for wiping up the tomato juice at the bottom of the bowl
• Roasted or sautéed zucchini on the side — it’s in season at the same time as the tomatoes

Variations

Hot Italian sausage: No changes required, direct swap.

**Add Spinach**: Right after you remove the pan from the heat and before the pasta is added, stir in a few handfuls of baby spinach. The residual heat will cause the spinach to wilt.

Add red pepper flakes: If you want to add a little heat to sweet sausage, now is the time– add 1/4 to 1/2 tsp crushed red pepper when you’re adding garlic.

Try another type of pasta such as rigatoni, fusilli, or farfalle. Long pasta like spaghetti won’t work as it’ll be harder to mix with crumbled sausage.

Replace Pecorino with Parmesan: Parmesan is less salty and milder in taste. This will change the dish to be softer in flavor, but it will still be good. Use slightly more than the recipe suggests.

Storage, Make-Ahead, and Leftovers

Storage: Refrigerate the leftovers in an airtight container for up to three days. Note that as the days go by, the pasta will soak up more of the tomato juice.

Reheat in a skillet over medium-low with a splash of water so it can loosen up. You can also use a microwave; just cover it and use medium power. When serving reheated leftovers, add a touch of fresh basil and some more cheese.

You can prepare the sausage, onion, garlic, and tomato mixture ahead of time and keep it in the fridge for two days. When you’re ready to serve, cook the pasta and combine everything. Basil and the leftover cheese should be added last.

Freezing: Not recommended. Fresh tomatoes do not freeze well, and the texture of the pasta is adversely affected.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I use canned tomatoes instead of fresh?

That said, it does alter the dish. Go with a 14.5 oz can of diced tomatoes, drained. The outcome becomes more a an easy skillet pasta with tomato sauce instead of a summer fresh pasta. It’s still good, just a bit different. When bad fresh tomatoes are the only option, this is the better choice in winter.

What’s the difference between sweet and hot Italian sausage?

Sweet Italian sausage contains no heat and is seasoned with fennel, herbs, and garlic. Conversely, hot Italian sausage includes crushed red pepper. Because fat and meat content are the same, they cook the same. You can use either for this recipe.

Can I use Parmesan instead of Pecorino Romano?

Because Parmesan has a milder and less salty flavor it would be reasonable to take caution and add less along with tasting the dish prior to adding any recipe instructed amount of seasoning. Pecorino Romano would be a superior selection in this case as its sharpness contrasts the sausage well, but if you have it Parmesan would be acceptable.

Why does the recipe say to skip the salt in the pasta water?

Although Romano Pecorino cheese is quite salty on its own, there is enough salt in the finished dish that you do not need to add any to the pasta water. That being said, for those who prefer pasta water that has been salted, feel free to reduce or omit the 1/4 tsp of salt that you add at the end and taste before adjusting.

How do I remove sausage from casings?

With a paring knife, cut a length-wise slit down the casing of each link to peel the casing off and discard it. Alternatively, some people just squeeze the sausage out directly into the pan, but this can be a bit messier. If you purchased bulk sausage (sold without casings), you can skip this step entirely.

Can I make this ahead for a dinner party?

The sausage and tomato mix will be fine in the fridge. Pasta can be cooked just before serving, and the rest of the ingredients can be added to a warm skillet to mix everything. Basil and cheese can be added just before serving. It’s a decent method to use and takes around 10 mins once the guests are seated.

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