Spicy Sausage and Garlic Penne Pasta

I had to try to make something from the leftovers in the fridge so I decided to make a pasta with the grilled sausage.  After a quick search on pinterest, I found this recipe.  I decided that it was a lot like my olive oil pasta so I was going to take some of their suggestions and turn it into dinner!!

I started by cutting up the sausage that was left over from the BBQ.  It was a Sweet Italian Chicken Sausage.  It was already cooked and ready to go into a new meal.  I love when I can rework leftovers into a new meal because you might not know this about me but I dislike leftovers.  I don't want to heat up the food from the previous day and eat it again (unless it is taco meat because I could probably eat them everyday).  My husband came in and taste tested the sausage and said it was really good!

I have one issue with sausage- I don't like the skin part.  I peeled off the casing from lots of them before throwing them in the pan.  If you don't like them, I hope that you try to take off the casing too :)

I pulled out all of the ingredients and left them on the counter so that I would be ready to throw dinner together whenever my husband and son made it in from playing outside at the neighbors pool.  It is much easier to be prepared then to be pulling things out with greasy hands.  Learned that one the hard way (as you can tell from the greasy handles on my spice cupboard).

I decided to start with the chili oil that I had made previously.  If you would like to make some, it is super easy so check out my original post here.  I added a little extra olive oil and garlic to fill up the pan the way that I wanted. 

I heated up the oil a little and then added the sausage.  I also added a little black pepper and basil.

I cooked them up and since I had so many, I had to dump the first batch into a bowl so that they didn't get burnt while I cooked some more.

I cooked the pasta at the same time.  The one that I was using only took about 8 minutes.  After it was done, I drained it and left it in the pot.

I mixed everything together in the pan to coat the pasta.  I added a little extra olive oil and topped with parmesan cheese.  Here is the finished product ready for dinner. 

It was super tasty and super spicy!  We would totally have this again.  Of course, I have crumbled sausage in the freezer now so it might be a little different next time.  I hope that you try it for yourself with leftover sausage or even worth buying some sweet italian sausage just for this meal!

Spicy Sausage and Garlic Penne

Ingredients

• 2-4 links Sweet Italian Sausage (any sweet variety should do)
• 8-16 oz box of penne pasta (or your favorite type)
• 1-2 tbsp chili oil
• 2-6 tbsp olive oil divided
• 2 tsp minced garlic
• 2 tsp dried basil
• dash of black pepper
• Parmesan Cheese

Instructions

1. Cook sausage if it hasn't been previously cooked.
2. Slice sausage into desired sized pieces and set aside.  Remove casing if desired.
3. Cook pasta as directed.
4. While pasta is cooking, saute minced garlic in chili oil and olive oil.
5. Add remaining herbs (more red pepper flakes to taste, basil, salt & pepper) to oil mixture plus the cut up sausage and continue cooking over low heat, stirring frequently. Add additional olive oil as necessary.
6. Drain pasta and return to pan.
7. Add pasta to sausage mixture and toss or stir to coat. Add remaining olive oil as needed and top with parmesan cheese.

Shared on Homemade Mondays