My sausage Alfredo pasta recipe has the most delicious, silky smooth sauce made with butter and parmesan cheese, sausage, and lightly wilted spinach. You need less than 20 minutes to make it, and there isn’t a splash of cream in sight.
My family loves fettuccine Alfredo, and this sausage Alfredo is high on our favorites list! If you’ve seen my chicken Alfredo recipe, you already know that I don’t add cream to Alfredo sauce. Instead, we make the sauce with butter, parmesan, and the starchy pasta cooking liquid. The sauce turns out super creamy, but skipping the cream makes it a little lighter on its feet.
I love the sausage in this pasta! We cook it in the same skillet that we use to bring our sauce together, so you have sausage scattered throughout the fettuccine and some of the fat and juices left from cooking it. The sauce soaks all that flavor up, making this even more delicious.
Key Ingredients
- Sausage: I list Italian sausage in our recipe below, but you can use what you love. If you enjoy spicy pasta dishes, use a hot sausage. I love a simple Italian sweet pork sausage, but again, use what you enjoy! Chicken or turkey sausage works really well, but stay away from breakfast sausage, which usually has maple syrup (or similar), which will make the sauce sweet.
- Spinach: I love the pop of green from lightly wilted baby spinach here. Baby kale works, too!
- Fettuccine: That’s the traditional choice, but you can substitute what you have on hand. Spaghetti is great, as is a short pasta like farfelle. When cooking your pasta, we ask you to save some pasta water just before draining. The starch in the pasta water thickens the butter and cheese into a velvety smooth sauce that coats the pasta.
- Parmesan: When I make fettuccine Alfredo, I seek out high-quality Parmigiano-Reggiano since it melts the best. Our Alfredo sauce doesn’t have many ingredients, so everything we use to make it must be good quality. If you can, buy a wedge of Parmigiano-Reggiano and finely grate it yourself.
- Butter: I use salted butter, but unsalted is fine (just adjust the pasta to taste with a bit of extra salt).
And that’s everything you need! I love that the sauce isn’t goopy or thick, and thanks to that starchy pasta water, it turns out velvety and smooth. It’s just saucy enough to coat the pasta. It may not look like a lot, but gosh, it’s delicious.
This reminds us of the pasta we enjoyed while visiting Italy. More often than not, sauces in Italy lightly coat the noodles. There’s not too much, not too little. Everything seemed just a bit lighter (not calorie-wise, but texture). We hope you try it soon!!
Spinach Sausage Alfredo Pasta
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PREP
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COOK
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TOTAL
Our sausage Alfredo pasta is quick, easy, and incredibly delicious. For the best results, use real Parmigiano-Reggiano and finely grate it yourself (it melts into the sauce better). When cooking your pasta, make sure you salt it well to taste salty like the sea (assume 1 tablespoon of salt for 3 quarts of water). And don’t forget to reserve some pasta cooking water before draining the fettuccine. It’s the pasta water that brings the sauce together.
6 Servings
You Will Need
6 ounces Italian sausage, casings removed, use hot or mild sausage
1 pound fettuccine
4 ounces Parmigiano-Reggiano, finely grated (about 2 cups), plus extra for serving
5 tablespoons butter, cut into 5 pieces
4 to 5 cups packed baby spinach leaves
Salt and fresh ground black pepper
Directions
1Cook sausage: Add the sausage to a wide skillet with a drizzle of olive oil over medium-low heat. Cook, breaking up the sausage with a wooden spoon until crispy, about 10 minutes. (While the sausage cooks, move on to cooking the pasta.)
2Cook fettuccine: Meanwhile, bring 3 quarts of water to a boil in a large pot. Add one tablespoon of salt and the fettuccine. Cook, stirring once or twice, for 1 minute less than the suggested cooking time on the package. The pasta finishes cooking when making the sauce. Reserve 1 1/2 cups of the cooking water, then drain the pasta.
3Make Alfredo sauce: Add parmesan cheese, butter, spinach, 1 cup of reserved cooking water, and the drained pasta to the skillet with the cooked sausage. Set the skillet over low heat. Use tongs to toss the fettuccine, butter, and cheese around the pan for one minute. Take the pan off the heat, then cover the skillet with a lid. Leave for one minute.
4Uncover the skillet and toss the pasta a few more times in the sauce. If the pasta looks dry, add a splash of more pasta water. If it looks wet, don’t worry, the pasta absorbs some the extra moisture as it cools. Serve fettuccine with a few grinds of pepper and a sprinkle of extra parmesan cheese over the top.
Adam and Joanne’s Tips
- Leftovers: Store leftovers tightly covered in the refrigerator for up to a day. As the pasta sits, it soaks up the sauce so while leftovers taste good, you’ll miss some of the velvety butter cheese sauce. When reheating, add a splash of water to thin the sauce a little.
- The nutrition facts provided below are estimates.
Nutrition Per Serving
Serving Size
1 bowl (1/6 of the recipe)
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Calories
544
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Total Fat
21.8g
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Saturated Fat
10.9g
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Cholesterol
59.7g
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Sodium
562.9mg
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Carbohydrate
62.2g
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Dietary Fiber
5.9g
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Total Sugars
3g
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Protein
25.7g
We’re Adam and Joanne, a couple passionate about cooking and sharing delicious, reliable recipes since 2009. Our goal? To inspire you to get in the kitchen and confidently cook fresh and flavorful meals.More About Us
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