Personally adding in sausages is the perfect finishing touch. Not only to add flavour but I love their firm texture in a creamy sauce. My recipe has a few tips and tricks to keep it a lighter creamy sauce, trust me, it will be all about the pasta on your plate, not the cream. There is also one key ingredient that might shock you, you’ll see why!
What is Tuscan Pasta sauce?
If you know me, you know I am very fussy and purist with pasta traditions. This recipe however is anything but traditional and is purely my own creation. Tuscan pastas range in so many different flavours but creamy sauces with herbs and lemon are quite popular hence the name of the sauce. It is a pasta with sausage in cream, spinach and flavoured with fresh herbs and parmesan cheese.
Main Ingredients
Pasta – You could use this sauce with any pasta shape, fresh or dried. I always think a homemade pasta is best with a creamy sauce, and my Lemon Pepper Sauce For Pasta recipe includes tips for making homemade pappardelle, which would be perfect with this sauce. It will work with anything though, use your favourite shape, I have used a bow tie pasta shape.
Fresh Herbs – The best thing about creamy sauces is they can taste quite plain without anything much in them but they flavour really well. Using a lot of fresh herbs is key to flavour. I have gone with fresh rosemary and thyme but you really could use anything, oregano, marjoram are other options.
Cream – I use single cream but you can use any cream that you normally use. I don’t want my sauce to thicken too much so I thin it out with lemon juice and starchy pasta water too. Read my tips and tricks below for an easy sauce.
Parmesan – Use the best quality parmesan cheese you can get your hands on, it does make a difference. Try runny it through a microplane or on the fine side of a box grater. If it goes clumped, don’t worry, it will melt don’t stress. We just don’t boil cream remember so it might take longer to melt.
Sausages – I used herby Italian sausages but again you can use your favourite ones, chicken would work well too. You could even use nduja too but check out my easy nduja pasta recipe for that.
Spinach – I use frozen spinach here, I love the convenience of it and I actually prefer it texture wise in a pasta sauce. Feel free to use fresh baby spinach but frozen helps keep the color.
How to make this sauce
ONE: Gently fry the the garlic and herbs in the butter over a medium heat for 1 – 2 minutes.
TWO: Add the cream and whisk well scraping the bottom of the pan. Lower heat to a medium low.
THREE: Add the lemon juice and whisk. It will seperate and come to a nice smooth emulsion if you keep whisking.
FOUR: Add the parmesan in a few lots, letting it catch and melt onto the cream gently. It shouldn’t be too much of a clumpy mess if it ever is you are heating too high.
FIVE: Add the cooked pasta and ¼ cup of pasta water and let it gently bubble away, stirring often. I let that water cook off a lot and add a second ¼ cup. We aren’t thickening too much here.
SIX: Add the sausages and spinach and cook gently for a few minutes to thicken ever so slightly to coat the back of a spoon. Cook for longer than you think if using a pasta like this that is stiffer to do al dente. A fresh pasta will cook very fast in the sauce and something like this would need 8 mins or so. Check out my pasta table guide so you can check if your pasta is cooked from the package directions. Undercook it by a minute so it finishes cooking in the sauce.
Tips for success
- UNDERCOOK your pasta! Especially true if using a dried shape, let it cook in the sauce to thicken and take on flavour.
- PASTA WATER. It really is your best friend, I couldn’t make a sauce without it. To ensure most sauces won’t dry out, add your pasta to the sauce with some starchy water at the same time. You can see how I emphasize this technique in my Coconut Milk Pasta Sauce recipe
- DON’T BOIL. Always heat gently, especially with a creamy cheese sauce. The bottom of the pan should never catch and it should never boil.
- LEMON! Please trust me adding lemon to a creamy sauce is SO key. Firstly it helps lighten the cream and won’t ever curdle if you add it, whisk, then add pasta pretty much straight away. It cuts through the richness and keeps it nice and light.
Cooking your pasta to the right texture
I like my pasta cooked to what I call a nice bite. Al dente is the Italian term we all know and means ‘to the tooth’ which is definitely how I like most shapes cooked.
WEIGHTING: I don’t know how long to cook dry pasta for as I predominantly make my own, cooking times are pretty inconsistent though and depend on the thickness of a shape or if its been dried etc. Pop one in your mouth (the best way to test!) after 3 mins and get a gauge for how much longer you think it needs knowing you will be cooking it in the butter sauce for a couple of mins.
Dry shapes like orecchiette are going to take longer 6 – 8mins, so again that’s why I suggest cooking a test piece so you can figure out exactly how much longer you need to cook it for.
Seasoning your pasta water
Salting your pasta water correctly is KEY! It makes a HUGE difference, I can’t stress that enough. I have a whole reel about it on my instagram but here is the jist. I use about 1.75L of water for 2 people (you might use more and that is fine!) and I use about ¾ – 1 tablepsoon of table salt. If you use more like 3 or 4 liters then you’ll need to up the salt accordingly probably 1.5 – 2 tablespoons.
Don’t forget, table salt is the saltiest one! Diamond crystal salt (my fave!) you’ll need to up it a lot. Your salt REALLY matters, I could do a bagillion stories on salt alone I love it so much, but salts are wildly different. Get familiar with the one you use, it makes a big difference to your cooking.
Seasoning of any kind should never be generic, YOU season to your taste, I can tell you how much salt I might use in a recipe and if you use a different salt to me it might be too much or too little. That’s why I am such a big advocate of seasoning to YOUR taste, you can’t rely on a measurement. In this sauce I suggest a salt measurement for the broccoli so use that to your tastes!
How much pasta per person?
I have a quick guide on figuring out how much pasta you need per person for any meal. Whether it’s for two people or twenty, I have the equations for weighing the right amount of pasta and sauce. I HATE food waste so this is an amazing guide!
Recipe FAQs
What cream should I use?
This is always tricky as I know cream is called different things all over the world. I use a single or light cream which might be known as a table cream where you live. This sauce is really gently cooked though and thinned with lemon and pasta water so anything will work.
What pasta shape is best?
Anything! I have used bow tie as I happened to have some in my cupboard (confession: I created this sauce because I needed to use up lots of ingredients in my fridge!) but any fresh or dried shape will work. If you are new to pasta and wanting to try my hank shape is really easy to make. Check out my Green pasta sauce, it’s the BEST
Ready to make this creamy Tuscan sausage pasta sauce?!
I really can’t wait to hear what you think about this recipe and I hope it becomes a firm favourite to make for your family. It will work with any pasta shape, fresh or dried so use what you have in your house.
Let me know when you make it either in the comments below or on instagram! I love to see your creations! Most importantly, ENJOY!
The Recipe
Delicious Creamy Tuscan Sausage Pasta
Ingredients
- 400 g Pasta of your choice, weighed per person (400g dried or 600g fresh)
- 1 tbsp butter
- 1 tbsp fresh rosemary , finely chopped
- 1 tbsp fresh thyme , finely chopped
- 2 garlic cloves , finely minced
- 1 cup cream
- 1 cup parmesan cheese , finely grated
- Juice of 1 lemon
- 2 x 150 g sausages (Italian), pre cooked
- 225 g packet of frozen spinach
- Black pepper
Instructions
- Cook your pasta in a pot of well salted boiling water until al dente, in a creamy sauce you don't want it in there too long so undercook it by a minute. Reserve some pasta water before draining.
- When cooking time is getting close start your sauce.
- Squeeze as much water out of the frozen spinach and set aside.
- Heat the butter over a medium heat in a large frypan and when foamy and melted add the fresh herbs and garlic, cooking gently for 1 – 2 minutes (try and time this so you can get the cream in before anything is catching or browning in the pan)
- Add the cream and whisk well gently scraping anything off the bottom.
- Lower the heat slightly if needed and add the lemon juice, letting it seperate and then come back to an emulsion by whisking for 30 seconds or so.
- Add the parmesan in a few additions, whisking until it has just melted and incorporated.
- Add your cooked pasta straight in and mix.
- Add ¼ cup of pasta water and let it all gently bubble away for a few minutes, just at a slightest of simmers, never boiling.
- This sauce will never thicken much so you want to see it bubble to know it is doing something.
- When most of the pasta water has cooked off add another ¼ cup, add the spinach and sausages and cook for another couple of minutes.
- If you've undercooked your pasta right it should be a perfect consistency by the time it has been bubbling away in the sauce for 4 – 5 minutes.
- Season with a few big cracks of black pepper to taste and lots of parmesan on top!
Notes
- Pasta – I weigh 200 grams dried pasta per person which works out to be around 150 per person cooked depending on the shape. Weigh individually so you have the perfect amount of pasta and sauce for two people. Check out my guide on how to weigh the right amounts.
- Timing – if you can sous chef this with another person then it’s best as it’s quite hard to time the pasta to be cooked at the right time. You can cook the pasta first and add a knob of butter post draining to stop it over cooking. It will also suck up some of the sauce this way so you might need to loosen with extra pasta water if you do that. I like to have cooked pasta in a colander and then reheat it in boiling water for 20 seconds before transferring it straight into the sauce.
