White ragu over pasta is a quick Friday night dinner that makes both the adults and the kids happy. Plus, multiple easy variations for those who like red sauce or don’t eat pasta.
Pasta Abruzzese
My husband and I recently went out to dinner at a new Italian restaurant that specializes in pasta made in-house. We ended up loving their pasta Abruzzese – it was complete comfort food in a dish. Chewy chitarra pasta bathed in an white ragu made with ground beef, pork, lamb, onions, carrots, celery, and parmesan. Naturally, I came home and immediately tried to replicate it.
The restaurant’s pasta Abruzzese was a white ragu that combined different meats. This was doable of course, but not super practical if I was cooking in family portions. I wanted this to be something I could replicate on a standard weeknight. So I started simple, using sweet Italian sausage as a base. I bought 2 pounds of fresh, uncooked mild Italian sausages and used a paring knife to slit the casings and pull them off. I diced up some vegetables and sauteed them in white wine. Perfect! And easy.
Friday is Pasta Night
I really enjoy cooking and thinking of new ideas for dinner. But for some reason, it’s also been a stress reliever to designate Friday nights as pasta nights at home. It makes it easy to know that we’re going to have some kind of pasta dish – I just need to figure out which one.
Pasta nights are also usually pretty fast to do. Pasta cooks in less than 15 minutes (including the time to get the pasta water boiling). So I try to keep whatever sauce we are making pretty quick. I’ve already posted about my ideal pasta night (basil, tomato, fresh mozzarella), which is super quick and doesn’t include any meat.
But when I got married, I discovered that my husband likes to have more protein in his dinners, so he started supplementing my pasta nights with a rotisserie chicken or some other form of meat. What was the point of an easy pasta dish if he was also making a separate meat whenever I cooked it? So the search for a more protein-heavy pasta situation began.
This white ragu has undergone a number of variations over the years. The latest iteration which I’m posting here was inspired by the pasta Abruzzese we had at a local Italian restaurant. It has more vegetables (great for the kids), white wine for flavoring (the alcohol cooks off and just leaves great flavor), and of course sausage.
White Ragu
As I’ve mentioned in the past, our children are weird about tomatoes and tomato sauce. It’s a perpetual thorn in my side because tomatoes are probably my favorite food. I’ve said before that I plan to keep exposing our kids to tomatoes – but if we are going to have basically one dish for dinner, I don’t want to have to fight them over the plate if it’s slathered in tomato sauce. So all my pasta dishes have a no-tomato option.
Variations
This is a white ragu, but I also often make some tomato sauce on the side for my husband. It’s totally not necessary – he just likes it with tomato sauce. I sometimes eat it with and sometimes without. The dish totally holds up without the tomato sauce. To add the tomato sauce, I toss some pasta in the tomato sauce first, then top it with the ragu.
A Low Calorie Option
The other reason I love this dish is that you can eat it over pasta – or – caramelized cabbage and onions with pepper! If you’re trying to lose baby weight, the cabbage makes this a great option. I often make both cabbage and pasta. I serve a little cabbage to the kids as a vegetable, to eat alongside their pasta. And then I usually eat most of my ragu over the cabbage. And of course I make myself a small plate of the pasta with ragu so I get to indulge a little.
I haven’t yet written up a cabbage recipe, so in the meantime, here’s a good option.
Other Vegetables
Another reason I love this dish is that it’s an easy way to get the kids to eat some vegetables. Our kids love meat – and these vegetables are smothered in meaty flavor. They usually eat up the vegetables without objections.
The recipe below calls for onions, carrots, and celery, but I have also added fresh fennel bulb and leeks with good results. I just add about 1 cup of either to the recipe without any other changes. I throw the fennel and the leeks in at the same time as the onions.
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White Ragu (Pasta Abruzzese with pork sausage and fennel)
White ragu over pasta with endless options for variations. My children like their pasta tossed with plain olive oil with ragu on top or on the side. My husband likes to toss his pasta in tomato sauce and then top with the ragu. I usually make some sauteed cabbage and top it with the ragu.
- Total Time: 30 minutes
- Yield: 4 servings 1x
Ingredients
Ragu
olive oil
1 chopped onion (red, yellow, or white)
2/3 cup chopped carrots
2/3 cup chopped celery
1 cup dry white wine
2 pounds mild Italian sausage
2 tsp fennel seeds
Optional: 1 tsp fresh oregano or thyme
Optional: grated Parmesan
8 ounces of dry pasta (yields approximately 4 cups of cooked linguine or 3 cups of shells or orecchiette)
Instructions
1. Sauté the onion.
Add about 1 tbsp of olive oil to a large sauté pan. Add the diced onion and sauté for about 5 minutes over medium heat, until the onion is translucent and starting to caramelize.
Note: If you’re making pasta, now is a good time to put on the water. If you’re making cabbage, now is a good time to start prepping. If you’re making red sauce, I usually put it on low heat before I start cooking or now.
2. Add the carrots and celery.
Add:
- 2/3 cup chopped carrots
- 2/3 cup chopped celery
- 1/4 tsp salt
- a couple of grinds of pepper
Cook for 5-7 more minutes over medium heat, until the vegetables begin to soften.
3. Add the wine.
Add 1 cup of dry white wine to the sauté pan. Cook the vegetables in the wine for about 5 minutes, until the wine is reduced and mostly absorbed by the vegetables.
Take the vegetables out of the pan before they’re totally dry. Set aside.
4. Cook the sausage.
Wipe out the pan and turn up the heat to high. Add 1 tbsp of olive oil.
Split the sausage casings open. Take the sausages out of the casing and throw out the casings. Plop the sausages into the hot pan. Break apart the sausages into pieces using a spatula. Don’t go crazy, as this will get a bit easier to do after the sausage cooks a bit. Add the 2 tsp of fennel seeds.
Let the sausage sit for about 3-5 minutes, until it has browned on the bottom. Then stir and continue breaking apart the sausages into small pieces.
Let it cook for another 3-5 minutes undisturbed to let the sausage brown again. Continue until the sausage is cooked through.
Note: Now is a good time to add the pasta (about 8 ounces) to the water. If you’re having cabbage, start cooking!
5. Add back the vegetables.
Once the sausage is cooked through and browned (usually takes me about 12 minutes), add back the vegetables. Stir together and let it cook over medium heat for another 5-7 minutes. Turn off the heat and sprinkle with oregano or thyme if using.
6. Enjoy!
Toss pasta with olive oil or red sauce. Serve over pasta or cabbage. Sprinkle some parmesan on there too.
- Prep Time: 5 min
- Cook Time: 25 min
- Category: Dinner
- Method: stovetop
