{butternut sauce + spicy sausage pasta}

Would you believe me if I told you this creamy pasta sauce has zero cream in it?  Shit you not!

Pureed butternut squash.  Salt.  Pepper.  Reserved pasta water.  Swear!

It’s super smooth and creamy and decadent.  You will feel like you’re eating something so, so bad.

Then you add some spicy chicken sausage.  The combo works so well together.  It’s pure comfort food.

You guys, I’m really diggin this whole veggie of the week jam that we’re on.  In case you missed it, I challenged myself in our {Fall To-Do’s} to incorporate a different veggie each week into our meals.  Last week’s veggie of the week: butternut squash.

Hands down my favorite so far.  Not that I haven’t cooked with it before, but it’s fun to try new healthy-ish recipes to use with it.

Did you see the Butternut Squash Pizzas on {Friday 5} – if you are still not sure you’re a butternut squash fan.  Or not sure your kiddos will dig it.  Try the pizza.  Everyone loves pizza, right?

 

Oh, and did you know that today is #nationalpastaday

Hell yeah!

Ok, back to the recipe……

Although I didn’t want to, I even shared a (little blitty small) portion with Bay.  I asked her what she thought the sauce was?  Her response….

“orange alfredo sauce”

#momwin

THANK YOU Skinny Taste for yet another amazing dish!!!

Here’s what you’ll need:

• 4 links spicy chicken sausage (casing removed)
• 1 butternut squash, peeled + diced
• 1 Tablespoon olive oil
• 10 oz pasta
• 1/4 cup shallots, minced
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 2 cups spinach, roughly chopped
• 2 Tablespoons parmesan cheese
• salt + pepper

 

Here’s what you do:

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil.  Add butternut squash and cook until soft.  About 10 minutes.

Remove squash with a slotted spoon and place in a blender.  I used my magic bullet and it worked great.  Blend until smooth.

Add pasta to boiling water (used for butternut squash) and cook according to package.  Save 1 cup of pasta water before draining.

I used casarecce pasta, just like Skinny Taste did in the original recipe.  It was tricky to find a whole wheat version, which I finally scored at Nugget.  Casarecce (pronounced “cah-sah-rech-ee”) which means “homemade” It is kind of a loosely free-form shape pasta.  Honestly, I never heard of this shit till last week.

In a large pan, saute sausage over medium heat until browned.  Set aside.

Reduce heat to medium and add olive oil.  Saute shallots + garlic until soft.

Add pureed butternut squash + salt + pepper.  Gradually add a little of the reserved pasta water.  Stir, then add more to thin out the sauce to your liking.  I used almost the full cup of pasta water.

Add spinach + parmesan.  Toss in cooked pasta + sausage.  Mix until well coated.

Serve topped with additional parmesan.

The recipe also calls for sage.  Which I’m sure would have been a great compliment to this dish.  I’m just cheap AF and didn’t want to spend the money on the fresh herb that I knew I’d only use once.

I love seeing that peeps are actually making these recipes that I blog about.  Just last week, I had two readers make the {baked chicken tacos}.

Makes my fucking day!

Thank you so much for sharing Leah Roman + Mica Romero!!  You guys make this whole blogging thing that much more fun 🙂

 

xoxo stacyb