Creamy Sausage Pasta With Wine Sauce (Almost Pasta alla Norcina +Video)

Why This Recipe Works

The magic is in a few simple, high-quality ingredients:

• Norcia sausage: a fresh, mild pork sausage (not the fennel-laced, spicy kind), seasoned with garlic, salt, pepper, and paprika. The Norcia butchers have been famous for over 2,000 years for the quality of their pork from free-roaming Cinta Senese black pigs. The tender meat flavors the whole sauce.
• Bronze-drawn pasta: extruded through bronze dies (not Teflon) for a rougher surface that grips the sauce, and dried slowly and naturally. I use rigatoni from Cavalier Giuseppe Cocco in Abruzzo, where Luca's family is from.
• Starchy pasta water: added near the end, it loosens the cream the sausage soaks up and binds the grated cheese tossed in just before serving, for a glossy, creamy sauce that never feels heavy.

Why You'll Love This Creamy Sausage Pasta

• The easiest creamy pasta recipe we make
• Ready in 25 minutes, start to finish
• Restaurant-quality but anyone can make it
• Bronze-drawn pasta adds great texture and flavor
• Wine deepens the sauce and brings out the sausage
• Heavy cream adds silky richness
• Kids love it as much as adults
• Perfect for Fettuccine Alfredo fans
• Versatile: use dry white wine, dry red, or Marsala

Substitutions

White wine is typically used to deglaze the pan in this sauce, but I've also substituted dry red wine, and even dry Marsala and they're all super delicious and produce similar taste results. Just use what you have or what you like to drink.

Also, authentic pasta alla Norcina contains shaved truffles, but I didn't use them because I was out when I wanted to make this recipe. If you have a real truffle (not truffle oil!), shave it right into the sauce at the end.

I've added fresh basil leaves to perfume the sauce (which is not in a real Norcina sauce, but it's delicious). Use them or don't. I also add a tiny amount of finely chopped carrots, which adds a slight nutty sweetness to the sauce (these are also not found in a real Norcina sauce).

You get the idea here - this sausage cream sauce is versatile as long as you stick with the basic ratios of cream to cheese and starchy pasta cooking water for sauce.

Ingredients

There are just a handful of ingredients in this creamy pasta dish so use the highest quality ingredients you can find for the best results. If you can't find Italian Norcia salsiccia, simply substitute your favorite fatty mild pork sausage (like sweet bratwurst meat, or even Italian sausage if you want).

• rigatoni pasta (sub penne, or favorite pasta)
• Italian Norcia sausage (sub favorite sweet sausage or make your own) *see recipe notes
• quality dry white wine  (sub dry red wine, or Marsala wine)
• shallot (sub onion) 
• carrot
• heavy cream
• Parmigiano or Pecorino cheese (sub Grana Padano or Parmesan)
• garlic cloves
• extra virgin olive oil
• fresh basil leaves (optional)
• salt and freshly cracked black pepper
• finely chopped chives for garnish (optional but recommended)
• freshly grated nutmeg (optional)

How to Make Creamy Rigatoni Pasta with Sausage & Wine Sauce (Almost Alla Norcina)

This is one of the easiest pasta dishes we make, and it's ready in 20 minutes from start to finish. I usually start heating the pasta water about 5 minutes into cooking time, which allows the sausage cream sauce to be ready in just about the time it takes these artisanal rigatoni noodles to cook up perfectly al dente.

1. Boil the pasta water. While you're working on making the sauce, bring a pot of lightly salted pasta water to a boil. Do not salt it "like the sea" (that's bad advice). Instead, salt it just enough to taste it and it flavors the pasta well but doesn't make our finished sauce too salty later on when we add some of this starchy water to the sausage cream sauce.
2. Build the sauce base. Heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a sauté pan or skillet set over medium-high heat, add the smashed garlic and shallots, and cook until fragrant and shallots are just tender but not browned (about 2 minutes). Add the chopped carrots and cook until just tender (about 2 more minutes) and reduce the heat to medium. Add the sausage pinching it off into small pieces as you go. Season with a little salt and add 3 basil leaves (if using) and cook the meat for about 5 to 6 minutes or until completely cooked through. Increase the heat once more to medium-high and continue cooking the sausage until lightly browned (about 4 minutes). *At this stage when the meat goes from just being cooked through, to slightly browned, it will start to sizzle more and sound different. This browning (building the fond) helps add a lot of flavor to the sauce when you deglaze the pan with wine in the next step.
3. Deglaze the pan with wine. With the heat on medium-high, add the wine to the pan and use a wooden spoon to scrape up the browned bits from the bottom of the pan (the fond) and stir to incorporate it. Set a timer for 3 minutes and cook until the wine has evaporated and the meat and the pan look glossy.
4. Add the heavy cream.  Add the cream and 3 fresh basil leaves to the sausage mixture, stir to combine, and cook for 3 minutes, or until it looks like the sausage has soaked up most (or all) of the cream. At this point, your pasta should be just about cooked through and the starchy cooking water is ready to be added.
5. Finish the cream sauce. During the last 3 minutes of pasta cooking time, remove about ¾ cup of starchy cooking water to a heatproof glass. Add about ¼ cup to the sausage cream mixture and stir to incorporate it. You'll notice the cream magically reappears and the sauce looks glossy from binding the starches to the fat in the cream. Add more starchy water as needed to reach desired consistency stirring and cooking just until it looks glossy and smooth (not goopy or thick, nor watery). Taste the sauce and adjust seasonings (adding salt and freshly cracked black pepper to taste), but remember you'll be adding grated cheese in the next step which also has salt in it.
6. Strain the pasta and assemble the pasta. Add the strained pasta directly to the sauce and toss everything quickly to combine. Turn off the heat, add the grated cheese, and diced chives (if using), and toss well. Serve immediately, and Enjoy!

How to Make Creamy Sausage & Wine Pasta (Almost all Norcina) step-by-step recipe photos