If you haven't finished your menu planning for this week, you're in luck. I'm begging you to throw these ingredients in a shopping cart and get this Cheesy Sausage Pasta Bake on the kitchen table stat! Life containing pasta might never be the same.
My kids would eat any kind of tomato pasta for dinner 365 days of the year, and I like it just as much. Usually I'll buy a pretty decent jar of sauce and just add the meat and pasta, but sometimes slow cooking your own sauce makes such a difference. I could tell by the pleasurable moans and groans while the family inhaled each bite, they knew this rich red brew was not from a jar. As usual the quality of the ingredient you put into a recipe will determine the quality of the finish. It's the little things like using San Marzano tomatoes and well made sweet Italian sausage that make this sausage pasta so rich and thick. A recent shipment of cheese from my friends at Cabot let me use Seriously Sharp Cheddar instead of regular mozzarella, see how I sneaked in even more flavor.
Even if you don't make this recipe as it is, the sauce can be used for any kind of pasta dish. Make a batch of homemade meatballs and cook them in this sauce, or lay it over some chicken Parmesan. It's rich, thick and full of flavor. I get excited when I end up with a recipe that I can visit again and again and this is my new pasta sauce. Simmer it on low and let the red wine, beef stock and tiny burnt pieces of the sausage get together with the fresh basil and super sharp cheddar cheese. Serve this with a baguette, you'll need it to mop up the ridiculously tasty sauce.
A super-rich pasta sauce finished in layers of lasagna, sweet Italian sausage chunks and covered in sharp cheddar.
