Cheesy Sausage and Pepper Pasta

Homemade Sausage and Pepper pasta made with ground pork, chopped bell peppers and an easy homemade marinara sauce, this recipe is totally from scratch and kid friendly!

We love cheesy Italian recipes at home like our Ultimate Meat Lasagna, Easy Chicken Parmesan and my favorite Shrimp Scampi which we could eat every day of our lives.

Sausage and Pepper Pasta made from scratch…well everything is from scratch except the pasta and the cheese. We can climb those hills another day. We do make the sausage from scratch along with the marinara sauce, using my Quick and Easy Marinara Sauce which is a recipe you will absolutely want to bookmark immediately.

If you want to make this a perfect, easy Italian meal serve it with my Olive Garden Italian Salad and Garlic Bread for a great meal the whole family will love.

How to make Sausage and Pepper Pasta

This recipe calls for a homemade sausage recipe. You can of course use pre-made pork sausage in your recipe. I chose to make my own because making sausage at home is as easy as using the ground spices sitting unloved in your cabinet.

If you’d like to skip using ground pork in the recipe you can also cook Italian Sausage links and slice the sausage into the pasta to serve it with pieces of sausage. I prefer crumbles of sausage to slices, but that’s just personal preference.

How to make Italian Sausage?

• Add ground pork to a large skillet with olive oil.
• Add crushed red pepper, salt, pepper, oregano, thyme and fennel.
• If using fennel seeds toast them before adding them.
• If making sausages mix seasonings into ground pork before cooking.

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Marinara Sauce

When it comes to choosing which marinara sauce to use you can choose to use a jarred variety or use my homemade recipe here on the site. Either way, the recipe calls for 4 cups, you can use 1 jar in it’s place.

The key with marinara sauce is to make sure you don’t let it reduce too much or when it sits after you take it off the heat your pasta won’t be as saucy. Tomato sauce will thicken as it sits. So remember to remove it from the heat while it is still just a bit saucier than you want to serve it.

I highly recommend when you make homemade marinara sauce you make the recipe in a bigger batch and freeze your extra portions. We make our homemade recipe x6 and keep the portions for later, so this recipe only takes 30 minutes from start to finish.

CHEESE OPTIONS

You can use shredded cheese or cubed cheese, the options are yours to make. The reason we used cubed mozzarella cheese in this recipe is because while the cubes of cheese sit in the pasta for a few minutes before serving they make small melted pools of mozzarella, but they don’t overwhelm the whole dish.

If we were to coat the whole top of the pan with cheese this would be closer to the style of a Baked Million Dollar Spaghetti or baked ziti recipe.

5 from 6 votes

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Sausage and Pepper Pasta

Homemade Sausage and Pepper pasta made with ground pork, chopped bell peppers and an easy homemade marinara sauce, this recipe is totally from scratch and kid friendly!

Course Main Dish

Cuisine Italian

Keyword Sausage and Pepper Pasta

Prep Time 15 minutes

Cook Time 15 minutes

Total Time 30 minutes

Servings 4 servings

Calories 539 kcal

Author Sabrina Snyder

Ingredients

• 8 ounces gemelli pasta
• 2 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 pound ground pork
• 1 tablespoons ground fennel
• 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/4 teaspoon coarse ground black pepper
• 3 cloves garlic minced
• 1 yellow onion chopped
• 1 red bell pepper chopped
• 1 green bell pepper chopped
• 4 cups marinara sauce
• 1 cup mozzarella cheese cubed

US Customary - Metric

Instructions

1. Cook the pasta one minute shy of the directions, drain and do not rinse.

2. Add the olive oil to a large skillet on medium-high heat along with the ground pork, fennel, red pepper flakes, oregano, thyme, salt, black pepper, garlic and onion and cook for 5-6 minutes, until cooked through, stirring occasionally.

3. Add in the bell peppers and cook for an additional 2-3 minutes until softened, stir in the marinara sauce and pasta, top with mozzarella cheese and serve.

Nutrition Facts

Sausage and Pepper Pasta

Amount Per Serving

Calories 539 Calories from Fat 342

% Daily Value*

Fat 38g58%

Saturated Fat 13g81%

Cholesterol 103mg34%

Sodium 1820mg79%

Potassium 1347mg38%

Carbohydrates 21g7%

Fiber 5g21%

Sugar 13g14%

Protein 29g58%

Vitamin A 2330IU47%

Vitamin C 82.9mg100%

Calcium 224mg22%

Iron 4.4mg24%

* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet.