I use frozen kale in this recipe because the frozen kale adds a little more liquid to the Dutch oven while it cooks. That gives the pasta a little more liquid to cook it, which helps overall.

If you can’t find frozen kale, or just happen to have fresh kale handy, you can use that instead.

If you use fresh kale, add an extra 1/4 cup of beef broth (or just plain water) and a 1/8 teaspoon salt when you add the beef broth.

And, if you don’t like kale or can’t find frozen kale in your grocery store, you can use frozen spinach instead.

Sausage crumbles are perfect in this sausage pasta recipe because they add a different texture to the recipe. But, if you’re looking for something to do with sausage links, you can use them in this recipe too.

Slice the sausage links into 1/4 inch slices and then cut those slices down the center. You can leave them whole, rather than cutting them in half, but they’ll just be a little big and will be a huge mouthful when you’re trying to get a bite of sausage, rigatoni, and all the vegetables at once.

So cut your sausage, then cook it in a pan with the onion and garlic. The sausage links will take longer to cook through that ground sausage, so just adjust your cooking time accordingly.

Follow the rest of the recipe as written.

I don’t understand the magic (or science) behind how the pasta cooks in the Dutch oven and absorbs all the liquid but this doesn’t happen when you cook pasta in a pot of water.

So, because of the fact that I just can’t wrap my brain around that at all, I didn’t understand how this recipe really worked when my friend originally gave it to me.

But, believe it or not, the pasta absorbs all the broth and cooks through.

Keep in mind that different types of pasta have different cooking times. So this recipe does say cook the pasta for eight to ten minutes, but you may need to cook it a little longer depending on the type of pasta you use (for example, a whole wheat pasta will take longer to cook).

Store leftover One Pot Sausage Pasta in an airtight container in the fridge. Cooked sausage should be eaten within four days of cooking.

If you aren’t going to eat the leftovers within four days, you can freeze leftovers in a freezer safe container. Be sure to eat it within three months of freezing.

Before eating frozen sausage pasta, let it defrost overnight before cooking.

Put a serving of pasta in a bowl and drizzle it with olive oil. Microwave on high for 30 seconds.

Alternatively, you can heat it up in a sauce pan on the stove, but that will take a lot longer than microwaving leftovers will.