Sausage and Peppers Rustica Pasta

Slow Cooker Homemade Italian Meal Tastes Like the Olive Garden

© Kelly Whitt

Mar 15, 2009

Sausage and Peppers Rustica is a spicy, flavorful, and nearly care-free meal. This pasta dish, adapted from a recipe that appeared in Country Woman magazine, tastes just like the Olive Garden's Sausage and Peppers Rustica.

Ingredients

• 4 medium or mild Italian sausage links, halved
• 1 green pepper, julienned
• 1 yellow pepper, julienned
• 1 small onion, diced finely
• 2 minced garlic cloves
• 2 teaspoons of Italian seasoning
• 1 can of petite diced tomatoes
• 1 (26 oz.) jar of spaghetti sauce (Prego's Organic Tomato and Basil is recommended)
• 3/4 of a 1 lb. box of noodles, such as spiral or rigatoni
• Parmesan cheese, if desired

Procedure

1. After slicing the Italian sausages lengthwise, place them in a pan on the stove. Brown the sausages on both sides. Remove the sausages and cut them into half coins, then place in the bottom of your slow cooker.
2. Cut peppers and onions and add them to the meat in the slow cooker.
3. Add garlic and Italian seasoning to the slow cooker.
4. First pour the petite diced tomatoes over the ingredients in the slow cooker and then add the spaghetti sauce on top of that.
5. Cover the slow cooker and cook on low for 6 hours.
6. Twenty minutes before dinner, boil a pot of water and cook the noodles. Drain and serve with the sauce on top. Sprinkle parmesan cheese on top, if desired.

This pasta, sausage and pepper dish tastes surprisingly like Olive Garden's dish of the same name. While the Olive Garden uses red peppers in their recipe, they are more expensive than green and yellow alone and the color gets lost in the sauce. Stick to green and yellow for the most visual appeal.

For more kick to your pasta, exchange the can of petite diced tomatoes for petite diced tomatoes with green chilies. Another option is to use spicy Italian sausages. To make this dish less spicy, try adding the peppers five hours after the start of the cooking time. This should allow the peppers to cook but not to infuse the rest of the sauce with too much spice.

Side Dishes for Slow Cooker Pasta

While the pasta can be a meal itself, it can also be bulked up with side dishes. The dish is great to serve for company, because there is not a lot of hands-on time involved after putting the ingredients in the slow cooker. Cheesy garlic bread is a great choice because the pasta is not a cheese-heavy Italian dish. Or keep the Olive Garden theme and serve it with bread sticks drizzled with butter and lightly sprinkled with salt and parmesan. This robust dish also goes well with a salad, whether Olive-Garden flavored or not.

Enjoy this easy Italian slow cooker pasta dish that is great for family and friends.

Slow Cooker Pasta

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