This baked penne, broccoli and ricotta dish is great for weeknights and potlucks. Leave the chicken sausage out to make it vegetarian.
Happy National Pasta Day, friends! In honor of today’s holiday, I have a very tasty and easy pasta dish to share with you.
I made this dish with the help of this gorgeous Lagostina Martellata Hammered Copper Pastaiola Set.
I’ve used this pot for all manner of blanching, steaming, and cooking by now (it also happens to work well as a canning pot for half pint jars!) and have taken to leaving it on the stove between uses, because I so enjoy seeing it there in all its gleaming glory.
The recipe I’m sharing with you today puts this pot to work twice. First, I use it to blanch off a bunch of chopped broccoli. Once it’s cooked, I use the same water to cook the whole wheat penne.
While the broccoli cooks, I browned some chicken sausage in a little olive oil and then drained it on a plate. Once the broccoli is bright green and tender, it gets drained and poured into the pan where the sausage had cooked.
From there, it’s a matter of building a sauce of pressed garlic and ricotta cheese. I wrap it up by adding the cooked sausage back in, along with the pasta, a healthy splash of pasta water, and a generous handful of grated parmesan cheese. Finally, it gets popped into the oven to melt the cheese and crisp the edges of the pasta.
I love having a petite pasta pot like this one in my kitchen, because it allows me to stay at the stove, rather than dripping water between the sink and the stove. I’ve long had a larger pasta pot, but rarely pulled it out because it was just too much for my regular weeknight cooking. This one is just so much more functional for my household.
Disclosure: Lagostina sent me this pasta pot to use and write about. No additional compensation was provided. All opinions expressed are entirely my own.
Baked Penne, Broccoli, and Ricotta
Ingredients
- 1 pound broccoli florets and stems, chopped
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1/2 pound chicken sausage
- 12 ounces short whole wheat pasta
- 1 cup ricotta cheese
- 2 garlic cloves, pressed or minced
- 3/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
Instructions
- Fill a pasta pot with water and bring it to a boil. Once it boils, salt the water well and add the broccoli. Cook for 3-4 minutes, until it turns a vivid green.
- Meanwhile, heat the olive oil in a large pan or skillet over medium-high heat. Remove the chicken sausage from its casing and brown in the pan, using a spatula to break it up into crumbles. Once it is brown, use a slotted spoon and transfer the cooked pasta onto a paper towel-lined plate.
- Tumble the cooked broccoli into the pan that had once held the sausage and reduce the heat to medium. Bring the water in the pasta pot back to a boil and add the pasta.
- Add the garlic to the broccoli, along with the ricotta cheese and the drained sausage. Stir to combine.
- When the pasta is finished cooking, drain it and pour it into the pan with the other ingredients. Stir to combine and add 1/2 cup of grated parmesan cheese, along with 1/2 cup of pasta cooking water.
- Season with salt and pepper, and add more pasta water, if it is too thick.
- Top with the remaining parmesan cheese. Slide the pan under the broiler to brown the top.
We are a pasta loving family and I gave away my old pasta pot because it was to big and not useful. This is a beautiful piece of cookware.
I can think of a million ways to use it! What a striking pan! We make a lot of fresh pasta and gnocchi and this looks like JUST the pan to make a good thing even better.
Oh my goodness, I would use it for everything! So pretty!
We do pasta dinner at least once a week. This would be perfect!
I’d use this pot to make pasta for my whole family. I love trying new pasta dishes, but don’t have the proper pots to do so.
Such a beautiful pot! I would use it to make our family favorite French onion soup.
Cheesy butternut squash pasta bake!
I’d love to use it during our family’s traditional Italian Christmas Eve dinner for our linguini with clam sauce.
I think copper is a hue that I’ve never thought about in my kitchen, but I would leave that beauty out to admire! Your recipe does sound delicious!
Gnocchi with Orleans cream sauce!
The first thing I’d try is the broccoli-penned recipe you just shared! This pot is gorgeous and deserves to be kept out where it can be seen and used every day. I’d love it for those half pint canning jobs too.
With a pot that pretty, I’d use it all the time — making pasta, blanched veggies, steaming (veggies when I’m being good, potstickers when I’m not), soups, stews, chili, tomato sauce, pots of beans, poached fish, deep frying, making ricotta… you get the idea.
I would love to receive this pot. It looks fabulous and I would use it frequently. My family would love the tasty pasta dishes cooked up in it.
I would leave it out just to look at it! And boil noodles and steam vegetables and maybe even make soup.
I would use this for dishes where the pasta cooks in the sauce for the last minute or to soak up flavor–no carrying everything over to the sink, just dump it into the neighboring pan!
We host monthly meatball dinners and this would be perfect!
This would replace my old pasta pot (bought some time in the late ’90s…). I’d make many a pot of pasta, but without the insert it looks like the perfect size for small batches of stock.
I’d make yummy fall soups and broths!
I love making homemade pasta! I’m sure this pot would make it taste even better!
What a beautiful pot! I would use it for cooking pasta for sure- I have longed for a pot like this. Thank you for the amazing chance to win!
I am not sure if I could stop looking at it long enough to make something. But pasta for sure.
Pasta is not only healthy, but it is very economical, so we eat it in one form or another at least twice a week. My favorite is oven baked macaroni and cheese.
This is a beautiful addition to the kitchen, and I would use it for just about everything from pasta to rice pudding.
Oh wow. I would use this for pasta. It would be great to not have to carry the boiling hot water over to the sink to pour it out, and this is so pretty.
Yes! No more scooting over to the sink with a hot pot of water! I’m getting my pasta making skills back into form, so it’ll probably be some fettuccine alfredo first!
I gasped out loud at how lovely this pot is! I love that it can be used for canning half pints, I’m sure it would be pressed into service in that capacity in my kitchen.
Oh my goodness…I would use this pot for veggies, soup and pasta and just about anytime I thought I could get away with it! Even reheating last night leftovers! Love it!!
Absolutely gorgeous! I would use this pot to continue practicing a butternut squash pasta recipe I’ve been working on, and it would make a beautiful addition to the pictures I’m taking for my upcoming blog!
I would use it for pasta, absolutely! Looks divine!
I would steam a lamb shoulder! I need this beautiful pot.
pasta, Pasta, & more PASTA!
I would use this beautiful pot to make your baked penne, broccoli and ricotta!
I would love to own this pot. I would use it to make all sorts of pasta dishes, as well as to steam vegetables. We are trying to eat more plant based foods and this would help us make the transition.
I would use this pot for everything! My new favorite pasta is tomato basil w/chicken, though.
Beautiful! I’ve been looking for something like this, and would use it for all the pasta we eat! It would also be great for steaming veggies.
This would be great to cook some pasta in to go with my Sicilian family’s sauce recipe. Yum!
I think I would leave it on the stovetop because it is so pretty! I would definitely use it to make lots of pasta dinners.
Soup and all kinds of pasta!
I would first and foremost use it as an accessory for my newly remodeled kitchen! (Oh, and for steaming/blanching all the things. I only have a microwave steamer at the moment.)
I’d use it for cooking spaetzle to serve with Wienerschnitzel!
My pots are more than 15 years old so it would be a lovely replacement!
I would cook pasta, soup and stews. It is one beautiful pot!
That’s a beautiful pot! I would use it to make the delicious sounding recipe you posted! 🙂
I would use it to blanche my greens, my green beans etc. so that they could be added to my spaghetti.
Oh I need this pot! I’m never cooking more than a pound of pasta at a time and all of them are way too big. This would be perfect for all the bolognese I’m intending to make this winter!
What a beautiful pot! I would use it for just about everything, but especially homemade ravioli.
It’s so pretty I’m pretty sure I would make any excuse to use it, boiling an egg, heating some cocoa…. Any. Excuse.
To steam fresh artichokes.
Oatmeal with almonds, apples and cinnamon. Yum!
I would use it to make my mom’s casserole!