Pasta With Sausage, Caramelized Cabbage and Goat Cheese
Updated November 18, 2020
- Total Time
- 45 minutes
- Rating
- Comments
- Read comments
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Ingredients
Kosher salt and black pepper
8 ounces dry rotini or other shaped pasta
4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
8 ounces sweet Italian sausage, casings removed
1 small head savoy cabbage (about 1 ½ pounds), quartered, cored and thinly sliced
1 medium yellow onion, thinly sliced
1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves
1 cup heavy cream
4 ounces goat cheese
Preparation
- Step 1
Bring a large pot of heavily salted water to a boil. Add the pasta and cook, stirring occasionally, until al dente, about 7 minutes; drain.
- Step 2
Meanwhile, heat 2 tablespoons olive oil in a large skillet or Dutch oven over medium. Add the sausage and cook, breaking apart with a wooden spoon, until fully cooked and crumbled, about 5 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the sausage to a plate, leaving the fat in the pan.
- Step 3
Add the cabbage, onion, thyme, 1 teaspoon salt, ½ teaspoon pepper and the remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil to the skillet. Cover and cook, stirring regularly, until the cabbage has completely wilted and starts to brown, about 15 minutes.
- Step 4
Reduce the heat to low and stir in the heavy cream, goat cheese and reserved sausage until evenly combined. Stir in the pasta, season to taste with salt and pepper and serve.
Private Notes
Comments
Loooove this! I’ve made it twice, once with regular green cabbage and once with the called-for savoy. There really wasn’t a flavor difference, so don’t stress if using whatever cabbage you have on hand. The second time around, I also did what others recommended: I doubled the sausage (which, conveniently, is a full standard package instead of half), and I added a light sprinkle of red pepper flakes at the end. Those two adjustments took this from a great recipe to an out-of-this-world recipe.
Cabbage sautéed in sausage fat?! Why yes!! Very good quick meal. I used pasta water in place of cream and extra goat cheese. More thyme and some Aleppo pepper flakes. Will make again!!
Made this with Beyond Beef Sausage. A good vegetarian option.
OMG make this pasta dish! It’s da bomb! I made it exactly as written. It’s definitely a rich dish but not overwhelming so like a carbonara. The goat cheese adds a nice funkiness and the cabbage adds your greens. I might double the sausage next time and maybe add a flourish of pecorino romano cheese.
This was surprisingly delicious! You have to love cabbage- it’s very cabbage forward lol!
These comment forums are often biased towards those who modified the recipe to great success. So I’m just here to say that I made the recipe exactly as written, and it was perfect.

