A quick and easy pasta in a creamy sauce with Italian sausage and pecorino cheese!
Pasta alla norcina is an Italian (Umbrian) pasta in a cream and cheese sauce with sausage. There are different versions, some of which contain truffles, mushrooms, cured meats, etc. Thew recipe is super quick and easy to make, taking almost as much time to make the sauce as it takes to bring a pot of water to boil and cook the pasta in it. The sauce starts out by cooking the Italian style sausage (hot or mild), followed by the onions and garlic. The sausage used in norcina typically contains rosemary, and since the Italian style sausage available around here does not include it, I add rosemary to the sauce. Next up for the sauce is some white wine, cream and pecorino cheese which is seasoned with nutmeg and fresh cracked black pepper to taste. By the time the sauce is ready the pasta should be cooked and you toss the pasta with the sauce, optionally adding pasta water and truffles or truffle oil and enjoy!
Pasta alla Norcina
Prep Time:10 minutes Cook Time:20 minutes Total Time:30 minutes Servings: 4
A quick and easy pasta in a creamy sauce with Italian sausage and pecorino cheese!
ingredients
- 8 ounces of pasta, such as rigatoni (gluten-free for gluten-free)
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 pound Italian sausage, casings removed
- 1 onion, diced
- 2 cloves garlic, chopped
- 1 tablespoon fresh rosemary (or 1/2 teaspoon dried ground rosemary), chopped
- 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1/2 cup white wine (or chicken broth)
- 1 cup heavy cream (or ricotta)
- 1/4 cup pecorino romano cheese, grated
- black pepper to taste
directions
- Start cooking the pasta as directed on the package.
- Meanwhile, heat the oil in a large pan over medium heat, add the sausage and cook, breaking it apart as it cooks.
- Add the onion to the sausage and cook until tender, about 5 minutes.
- Add the garlic, red pepper flakes, rosemary and nutmeg and cook until fragrant, about a minute.
- Add the wine (or broth) and deglaze the pan by scraping up any brown bits off of the bottom of the pan as the broth sizzles.
- Add the cream, mix and simmer for a minute.
- Turn off the heat, mix in the cheese and let it melt before seasoning with pepper to taste.
- Add the cooked pasta to the sauce and enjoy!*
Note: *Reserve some of the water that the pasta was cooked in and add it to the pasta to get the sauce to the desired consistency.
Option: Add a splash of lemon juice to the sauce at the end.
Option: Add red pepper flakes along with the garlic for even more spicy heat!
Option: Garnish with shaved truffles or truffle oil!
Option: Garnish with fresh chopped parsley!
Option: Replace the pecorino cheese with parmigiano.
Option: Add 8 ounces or fresh sliced mushrooms, or one ounce dried mushrooms, reconstituted and chopped.
