This easy one pan Orecchiette and Chicken Sausage in a Garlic Wine Sauce will keep the whole whole family asking for seconds. The fun shaped noodles, lemony garlic wine sauce and budget friendly ingredients will make this 20 minute dinner one you will want on repeat.
Do you like one pan dinners? We love recipes like this one and our shrimp and sausage pasta recipe. They are cozy, easy and cleanup in a breeze.
What are Orecchiette Pasta?
Orecchiette noodles are little oval pasta cups that hold on to the sauce or any seasonings your little heart desires from southern Italy. This fun shape ear shaped pasta is the perfect transporter of little pieces of turkey sausage, lemon garlic wine sauce, broccoli, red pepper flakes and parmesan cheese.
Pantry Ingredients
Dinner needs to be SUPER simple and with just a handful of ingredients.
- Orecchiette pasta
- Sausage (We used chicken sausage to lighten it up)
- broccoli
- olive oil
- garlic
- lemons
- Italian seasoning
- dried red pepper flakes
- white wine or cooking sherry
Sausage and Broccoli
The only two extra items needed are Italian sausage and broccoli. We used chicken sausage to make it a little healthier, but you can use regular ground Italian sausage or spicy Italian Sausage too. For more delicious recipes using just what you have on hand, be sure to try to browse our 17 Pantry Recipes for Emergency Preparedness.
More Pasta Recipes
If you are in the mood for more comforting pasta recipes, we have you covered.
Homemade Tagliatelle Pasta with Zucchini Blossoms
Mini Sweet Roasted Pepper Basil Pasta
How Long to Cook Orecchiette?
Orecchiette noodles only takes about 10 – 12 minutes to cook in salted boiling water or per the instructions. Salting your water very well will ensure a delicious recipe.
Once the pasta is already cooked, you can only add flavoring to the outside of the noodle. Gluten-free Orecchiette noodles have varying cook times depending on the ingredients used. As the orecchiette will also cook again in the pan with the sausage and veggies, we take them out when they are just “Almost” aldente.
Ingredient Exchanges
Like all Italian recipes, our Orecchiette and Chicken Sausage in a Garlic Wine Sauce has just a handful of good quality ingredients. We let the ingredients speak for themselves.
We love using Mie Radici’s organic extra virgin olive oil and Sicilian Spice Blend. The Sicilian Spice Blend is only roasted spices and herbs, no added salt, chemical or sugars just the spices.
If you have a gluten allergy, there are a few brands that carry gluten-free orecchiette. However, they do come at a price premium and are a little more difficult to find. Feel free to add or exchange any vegetables you desire but this recipe is really delicious with broccoli, broccoli rabi or cauliflower.
Brighten and Lighten up for Spring
There is nothing like a fresh squeeze of lemon to brighten up any dish. Adding a splash of lemon to this pasta and sausage recipe gives it a pop of flavor. Citrus or acid is sometimes overlooked when making a recipe without fish or seafood. However, if you want to give any dish another dimension of flavor a squeeze of fresh citrus juice before serving is just what you need.
Simple Garlic Wine Sauce
Are you going to leave all that delicious flavor stuck to the bottom of your pan? Heck no! Drizzle a little wine that you are drinking to loosen up the delicious bits off the bottom of your pan and a little chicken broth to make a quick and easy garlic wine sauce.
These orecchiette noodles are made for capturing and clinging sauces to them. Drizzle a little EVOO and lemon juice and toss and your done. Simple, Easy, fast and delicious.
Serve with a Salad
Gluten-Free Balsamic Panzanella Salad
Simple side salad with a Lemon White Balsamic Vinaigrette
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Orecchiette and Chicken Sausage in a Garlic Wine Sauce
Ingredients
- 1 pound Orecchiette pasta
(can use gluten free option too) - Water
to boil pasta - 1 tablespoon Salt
(for boiling pasta) - 2 tablespoon Olive oil
(we used Mie Radici's Nocellara Organic Reserve EVOO) - 1 pound Ground Italian chicken sausage
casings removed (can also use Italian pork sausage mild or hot) - 1 Onion
peeled, cut in half and sliced - 3 cloves Garlic
peeled and sliced - 1 teaspoon Italian Seasoning
(we used Mie Radici Sicilian Spice Blend) - 1.5 cups Broccoli
chopped - ½ cup White wine
dry - ½ cup Chicken broth
gluten free - ½ teaspoon Red pepper flakes
or per desired heat level - 2 tablespoon Lemon juice
- Salt and pepper
to taste - ¼ cup Parmesan cheese optional garnish (if dairy sensitive can use nutritional yeast as a sprinkle on top)
Instructions
- In a large pot bring water and salt to a boil. Add Orecchiette noodles and cook according to package instructions but remove a little before aldente as the noodles will cook again in the pan with the additions. (We cooked our noodles for around 11 minutes for regular orecchiette noodles but only for 5 minutes using gluten free orecchiette.) Drain, set aside.
- In the meantime, add a little olive oil to a large frying pan and your chicken sausage. Cook for for about 7 minutes or until no longer pink. Add onion, garlic, red pepper flakes and Italian seasoning and sauté until aromatic. Remove sausage from pan and set aside to keep warm. DO NOT WASH PAN.
- Add white wine and chicken broth to the pan and scrape the bottom of the pan to remove all the delicious bits of sausage. Add your chopped broccoli, cover and Cook for about 2 minutes or until the broccoli is fork tender and bright green. Remove the lid add your “Almost Aldente” Orecchiette pasta, salt and pepper to taste and parmesan cheese and toss for about 2-3 minutes or until the liquid has reduced slightly and pasta is creamy. Drizzle a little fresh lemon juice and EVOO to serve and toss.
- Garnish with parmesan if desired and enjoy.
Hannah says
Decadent flavors and easy prep? I'm in! Definitely a winning combination.
HWC Magazine says
Thank you Hannah. This orecchiette pasta recipe is also delicious with a plant based meat sausage for an easy weeknight dinner idea.
Colleen says
This is just the kind of fast and easy recipe we were looking for after the marathon cooking Thanksgiving holiday. Just one pan and 20 minutes but so much flavour. Will be making again.
HWC Magazine says
We are so happy you enjoyed our Orecchiette and sausage recipe Colleen. We know exactly what you mean. You can only eat leftover turkey so many days in a row. The cook deserves a little break after the big cooking event. Take Care
Eha Carr says
Oh - a lovely 1/2 cup of wine for the pot and a glass of same for me whilst cooking ! I do like these kind of recipes and this seems a very logical fast and healthy meal for me to make whilst on my own ! An easily available kangaroo or emu sausage would not fight with the other ingredients and a moreish meal would be, well, will be on the table pretty quickly ! With the rest of the wine naturally . . . 🙂 !
HWC Magazine says
Thank you Eha. As Julia used to say, "I cook with wine and sometimes I put it in the food." I have never tried kangaroo or emu sausage but we are game. This is one quick and easy meal. If you make a little extra, leftovers for lunch the next day rock. Take Care