Spicy Chicken Sausage Pasta with Premio Italian Sausage

Name: Spicy Chicken Sausage Pasta
Prep time: 5 min
Cook time: 35 min
Total time: 40 min
Cuisine: Italian
Ingredients: 4 Premio Spicy Italian Chicken Sausages; 1 onion, chopped; 3 cloves garlic, minced; 1 cup dry red wine; 28 oz can diced tomatoes; 1/3 tsp red pepper flakes; 1 14.5 oz can of cannellini beans, rinsed and drained; 1 lb rigatoni or other short, substantial pasta shape; 2 tbsp fresh basil leaves, thinly sliced; 1/3 cup Parmigiano cheese, grated, plus additional for serving; salt to taste

Published: Jul 27, 2018 · Modified: Aug 11, 2020 by Cooking Chat · This post may contain affiliate links

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Spicy Chicken Sausage Pasta features healthy and flavorful Premio Italian Chicken Sausages cooked with a tomato based sauce for a delicious pasta meal! Disclosure: This post is sponsored by Premio Foods.

I love the combination of sausage and pasta for a hearty meal. So when I had a chance to try a variety of Premio Italian Sausage products, visions of pasta recipes quickly came dancing through my head!

One tasty result of those pasta and sausage visions was this delicious Spicy Chicken Sausage Pasta recipe I am sharing with you today. Premio Italian Chicken Sausages simmer along with tomatoes, onion and of course plenty of garlic. Your home will smell good when you are cooking this up!

We add some white cannellini beans to further enhance the hearty aspect of our Spicy Chicken Sausage Pasta. Toss that tomato and sausage sauce with rigatoni pasta, then top with some good quality Parmigiano cheese for a delicious Italian meal.

Allergy-Friendly Premio Sausage

One thing that immediately caught my eye about Premio Sausage is the allergy-friendliness of their products. That’s a big deal for us, as we avoid egg, nuts and sesame in our house due to our son’s food allergies. He also avoids dairy, although he seems like he might be outgrowing that one.

All Premio Sausage products are egg-free, nut-free, gluten-free, and dairy-free. Their Chinese Sausage links do contain sesame oil; however, according to the Premio, there are processes in place to prevent cross-contamination, making all of the Italian sausage products we tried sesame-free too. Note: always double-check ingredients on labels, as they may change from time to time. When in doubt, contact the manufacturer about ingredients and production methods to assure safety with food allergies.

So Premio Sausage products are allergy friendly, but how do they taste? Well, that’s the best part! We really enjoyed the flavor of the Premio sausages we tried. In addition to the Premio sausages we used for the Spicy Chicken Sausage Pasta, we also tried the Premio Sweet & Hot Italian Sausage Combo (pork based sausages) and the Premio Sweet Italian Chicken Sausage.

We loved all the Premio sausages we tried! In addition to this Spicy Chicken Sausage Pasta, I also cooked up another pasta dish with the pork sausages and some greens. Check out the details of that ziti with sausage recipe!

In addition, my extended family gathered for a 4th of July cookout and enjoyed a variety of Premio sausages off the grill, sliced up and served with a bit over mustard.

Note that the Premio sausages we tried are not pre-cooked, so be sure the sausage meat gets cooked all the way through.

Making Spicy Chicken Sausage Pasta

You start this Spicy Chicken Sausage Pasta recipe by browning the Premio sausages in a large skillet. This develops a nice base of flavor for the sauce in the pan, and it helps the sausages stay together when cooking them in the sauce.

Set the sausages aside to cool while you cook up the onions. When the sausages are cooled, they get sliced up to be added back into the skillet.

For a nice presentation, rather than slicing all the sausages after browning, cook one of them all the way through in a separate pan or on the grill. The sausages cooking in the sauce break up a bit; the sausage you cook all the way through separately will give you some photo worthy sausage slices.

The sliced sausages simmer with wine, onions, garlic and tomatoes as the pasta cooks. Adding cannellini beans toward the end further thickens the sauce.

I like to use a short, substantial pasta like rigatoni for this Spicy Chicken Sausage Pasta. I bet orecchiette would be good, too.

Toss the cooked pasta with the spicy chicken sausage sauce, top with some good quality cheese, and you are ready for a great meal!

Wine Pairing for Spicy Chicken Sausage Pasta

The 2014 Spelt Montepulciano D’Abruzzo Riserva ($21, 13.5% ABV) was a winning pairing for the Spicy Chicken Sausage Pasta. The big flavors of this Italian red wine work very well with the dish. Stands up to the meat and spice of the Premio Italian sausage, and has enough acidity for the tomatoes.

Spelt is one of several very good Montepulcianos produced by La Valentina winery in Abruzzo, Italy. I first had a chance to sample Spelt at the winery during a press trip to Abruzzo this past spring, and was very pleased to enjoy it back home with this Italian recipe featuring Premio Sausage®. Learn more about Abruzzo wine in this article based on our visit.

We also tested another wine I had while in Abruzzo, a Cerasualo rosé made from Montepulciano grapes. Although the Cerasualos work well with some tomato based dishes, it didn’t have the heft to work with the robust flavors of our Spicy Chicken Sausage Pasta.

Barbera can be another good red wine choice to pair with this dish. Typically this grape hails from the Piedmont region in Italy, but we enjoyed leftovers with a a Barbera from Lake County, California– the 2014 High Valley Vineyards Barbera. This bottle has a more plush, fruit forward style than the more austere versions from Italy–either style Barbera would be worth trying with this pasta. And while I definitely recommend the Spelt, other good quality Montepulciano d’Abruzzo should work nicely with the recipe, too.

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