Recipe: Easy & Quick Mushroom and Sausage Pasta

I have created the easiest recipe for a quick work week dinner. This can easily be doubled and increased for large families or potlucks! And, the ingredients are easy to obtain! It takes about 20 minutes to make (mostly to allow the pasta to cook so it will be quick to get it to the dinner table from the time you start! You can easily omit the sausage and have this as a meat-free dinner!

Ingredients:
1 Cup of Penne Pasta
1 Tbsp Heavy Whipping Cream
1 Tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1 Cup of Mushrooms
3 Links Wild Mushroom Chicken Sausage
1/2 C Chopped White Onion (not pictured- chopped in advanced)
4oz Pinot Noir red wine
1 Tsp Dried Shallots (fresh shallots work well!)
1 Tsp Fine Herbs Seasoning
1 Tsp Sunny Paris Seasoning

You will want to start boiling the pasta first (add about 1 Tsp Salt to the water). Add the pasta as soon as it starts to boil. It will take about 20 minutes for the pasta to cook al dente, so you want to get this started first as it will take the longest time to cook.

Next, start a skillet with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil  on Medium Heat and start cooking the chopped onions. Let them lightly saute for about 2 minutes and have them cook first. Once they start to brown, place your sliced sausages in. Flip each one over before continuing on. You want them to be lightly browned (as shown in the picture) to ensure they cook well (they are pre-cooked however the slight crisp on each side makes for a better tasting dish i found). Once the onions and sausage are cooked well, place them on the outside and create a space in the center. ***IF you are omitting the sausage at this point that is fine, add other vegetables at this point like carrots, parsnips, or potatoes.***

Next, you are going to add the mushrooms (I lightly chopped them into smaller pieces prior). Also, add your shallot, fine herbs and sunny paris seasoning blends. You will continue to cook this about 2-3 minutes, lightly mixing until well mixed and cooked thoroughly. Mushrooms do not take long to cook (only about 2 minutes in total) so this step is fairly quick.

For the next step, you will start adding your wine. Start off adding 2 ounces of wine. Once it starts to boil and tossed well, add the other 2 ounces. The alcohol will cook off but the flavor will remain. This is an essential step for this dish, as it is french inspired you will need the flavor of the wine.

You will continue to cook the mixture until the wine liquid is reduced by half. You are essentially de-glazing the pan for all the flavors that cooked on while you were cooking the onions, sausage and mushrooms alone. So use your wooden spatula for a light scraping of the bottom of the pan to achieve this! It helps the sauce grab all those flavors.

Now that the wine sauce has been reduced by half, you are going to add your heavy cream to the pan. Continue to mix this well (you do not want the cream to curdle) so you will need to stir this well until well combined. Taste often and add salt and pepper to taste.

Once your mixture is well combined, it should look something similar to this. Remove the mixture from the heat and drain pasta. It should be fully cooked and al dente by this point. Once pasta is drained add it to your plate or bowl and place mixture on top. At this point you can add grated Parmesan cheese or toppings of your choosing.

I skipped the grated Parmesan cheese and opted for a glass of the leftover wine with dinner. Enjoy!!