Italian Pasta Made Healthy

I love pasta. My sister-in-law is Italian and she makes the best pasta and risotto recipes (one day soon I’m going to post her red wine sausage risotto and you will LOVE it!)

Anyways, here is one of her pasta dishes that I love, but I swapped chicken sausage for pork sausage and whole wheat pasta for regular pasta to make it healthy.

(Again, I’m not going to put how much of each item because you can vary it for how many people will eat. Tonight I made it for one – I just looked at what one serving was for the pasta and measured it out using my scale (actually I 1 ½ it because I was starving and I’m pregnant – although I got really full and ate only half so 56 grams of dry pasta is plenty for one person. Then I add as much mushroom and spinach as I want because it’s healthy.)

• Whole wheat pasta
• Chopped onion (I usually use yellow or white, but tonight I used red because that’s all I had)
• Chicken sausage -one link per person (I used the Trader Joe’s Sundried Tomato and Basil Chicken Sausage – so good!)
• Mushrooms, sliced
• Lots of fresh baby spinach
• White wine
• Red pepper flakes (optional)
• Salt and pepper
• Parmesan or Pecorino Romano cheese

Here’s how to make it:

1. Boil your pasta water. Add salt and pasta and cook.
2. Meanwhile, sauté your onion, mushrooms, and chicken sausage (take out of casing and break up) in a sauté pan.
3. Add some wine to deglaze the pan and to form a little bit of liquid.
4. Toss in some red pepper flakes and pepper for heat and spice.
5. Once the pasta is almost done, toss in a BUNCH of fresh spinach and let it wilt down.
6. Drain and add the pasta.
7. Stir in some cheese and toss all together.
8. Pour in a bowl and add more cheese.

See how easy – and healthy! Hope you enjoy!