This Sausage Rigatoni with Mustard Greens recipe is a quick and easy pasta dish featuring spicy mustard greens, Italian sausage, and grape tomatoes. Everything is served over a bed of al-dente rigatoni for the perfect Italian meal.
Today’s pasta dish with sausage and greens makes delicious use of simple ingredients and is ready in 25 minutes. It’s got mustard greens, a light Dijon mustard sauce, Italian sausage, tomatoes, and Parmesan cheese. It’s super tasty!
What Greens To Use?
I chose mustard greens because I love their flavor, but kale or spinach also work if you prefer those. I usually opt to grab a bag of greens in the store that’s already chopped and washed to make my life really easy.
How to Make Pasta with Sausage and Greens
When you’re cooking the pasta, make sure to reserve some of the pasta water to create a sauce with the Dijon mustard. Something really magical happens when you use pasta water in a dish. It brings everything together.
To make this dinner you brown the sausage, add the mustard greens, and then toss that together with the grape tomatoes and Dijon before folding it into the pasta (with pasta water!) to serve.
The meaty sausage really ties everything together and it’s a light but filling dish to make when you’re craving pasta.
More Delicious Pasta Dinners
If you love a good pasta dinner as much as I do, be sure to try my favorite pasta recipes, linked to below. And, when in search of just the right thing to make for dinner on a weeknight, go over and browse all of my Weeknight Dinner Recipes – there are over 300 of them!
- Sun-Dried Tomato Chicken Pasta
- Classic Italian Sausage Pasta
- Caprese Pasta Salad
- Easy Pour-Over Veggie Pasta
- Pasta Carbonara Made With Greek Yogurt
- Shrimp Scampi Pasta Bake
More Delicious Greens
Oh, and if you love cooking greens, you’ll also love these delicious greens recipes:
- Southern-Style Turnip Greens – learn how to cook tender and flavorful turnip greens
- Classic Collard Greens Recipe – cooked in the Instant Pot so that they’re nice and quick
- Best Beet Greens – this simple recipe is one I make all the time
Enjoy! – Christine
Pasta With Sausage and Greens Recipe
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 15 minutes
- Total Time: 25 minutes
- Yield: 4 servings 1x
- Category: Entrée
- Method: Stovetop
- Cuisine: Italian
DESCRIPTION
This recipe is a quick and easy pasta dish featuring spicy mustard greens, Italian sausage and grape tomatoes. Everything is served over a bed of al-dente rigatoni for the perfect Italian meal.
Ingredients
- 1 lb. dry rigatoni noodles
- 2 Tbsp. Dijon mustard
- 3 Tbsp. olive oil
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 and 1/4 lb. Italian turkey sausage, casings removed
- 10 oz. trimmed and chopped mustard greens
- 1/2 tsp. salt
- 1 pt. grape tomatoes, halved
- 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
Instructions
- Cook rigatoni according to package instructions, making sure to save 1/3 cup of cooking liquid prior to draining.
- Whisk Dijon into reserved pasta liquid and set aside.
- Meanwhile, heat olive oil in a large saucepan over low heat. Add garlic. Cook to infuse oil with flavor, 2-3 minutes.
- Increase heat to medium-high and add sausage. Use a wooden spoon to break it up. Cook stirring occasionally until cooked through, 5 minutes.
- Add mustard greens, 1/3 at a time, allowing them to wilt and make space before adding next addition. Stir in salt and cook stirring occasionally until greens are fully wilted, 3 minutes.
- Add the tomatoes and the Dijon mixture. Stir to heat through. Toss with cooked pasta.
- Serve topped with Parmesan cheese.
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This post originally appeared in November 2016. It was revised and republished in April 2021.
Renee says
Love this recipe, always looking for new pasta dishes. I used veggie sausages to make it vegetarian and it was super easy. Thanks~!
Christine Pittman says
Yum, thanks for letting us know, Renee!