Usually when I’m making up my menu for the weekend I have to go to the store and get quite a few ingredients. Not for this recipe!! I had some fresh kale in the fridge (my new-found love). I had sausage, home-made pasta, and home-made chicken stock in the freezer so I was good to go! Not only was this easy and fairly quick .. but it was incredibly good. Sometimes recipes with the simplest of ingredients turn out surprisingly full of flavor. Enjoy!
Ingredients:
1 tablespoon olive oil
3 cloves of garlic chopped
1 lb turkey or pork sausage, casings discarded and sausage crumbled
3/4 lb kale, tough stems and center ribs discarded and leaves coarsely chopped
1 teaspoon hot pepper flakes
1 lb bowtie pasta, or pasta of your choice
3/4 cup reduced-sodium chicken broth
zest of 1 lemon
1 oz finely grated Pecorino Romano (1/2 cup) plus additional for serving
Preparation:
Heat oil in a 12-inch heavy skillet over moderately high heat until hot but not smoking, add chopped garlic, then cook sausage, breaking up any lumps with a spoon, until browned, 5 to 7 minutes.
Meanwhile, blanch kale in a 6-quart pot of boiling salted water , uncovered, 5 minutes. Remove kale with a large sieve and drain. Return cooking water in pot to a boil, then cook pasta in boiling water, uncovered, until al dente. Reserve 1 cup pasta-cooking water, then drain pasta in a colander.
While pasta cooks, add kale to sausage in skillet and sauté, stirring frequently, until just tender, about 5 minutes. Add hot pepper flakes, and broth, stirring and scraping up any brown bits from bottom of skillet, then add pasta and 1/2 cup reserved cooking water to skillet, tossing until combined. Stir in cheese and lemon zest and thin with additional cooking water if desired.
Serve immediately, with additional cheese on the side.
Pasta Princess and More 
This is one of my favourite combinations with pasta. The lemon zest really makes the dish. Nice post, and beautiful pasta!
Thank you so much for the nice compliments!
Oooh that looks delicious….plus I love your tablecloth (table surface?) – does it make me a geek that I notice these things? 🙂
Thank you so much! Ha Ha … no, that does not make you a geek for noticing such things lol
Yummy yummy yummy! I love the simplicity of pasta. Just grab and cook! 🙂
Love this post!
Thank you Elena
Looks very good, Cheryl! I’ve never had kale on pasta. Here in Holland, we only use kale together with potatoes to have that mashed potato which goes with some meat and gravy.
Thank you Malou. I absolutely love Kale and I’ve discovered kale and sausage are a perfect combination.
Oh my, this turned out beautifully!
Thank you so much 🙂
I love kale, and will definitely be trying this one!
Let me know how you like it. 🙂
Pingback: day 85: cooking it up/ bow-tie pasta with chicken sausage and kale « ipinterest
Since we got our snowstorm here in Mass, it was a soup kind of day & I remembered this recipe. Made a variation of it with bacon & potatoes & thoroughly enjoyed it. Thank you for your inspiration!
My pleasure 🙂 I’m glad you got some ideas from the recipe – nothing beats a hot bowl of soup in the winter!
I saw some kale in the supermarket yesterday and wondered what on earth I would do with it.
Kale is awesome. Recipes for Kale are popping up all over the place. It’s good, it’s cheap and is super healthy!