This recipe reminds me I should cook with tortellini more often. We frequently turn to pasta (usually with some form of protein and vegetable) for a quick and easy dinner option. For as much as I like pasta and cheese (and the two together), I’m surprised tortellini isn’t in a regular rotation.
This dish is a quick, hearty, filling but not heavy option for the summer months. The tortellini take just a few minutes to cook, the chicken sausages are cooked through ahead of time, and some early mid-summer cherry or grape tomatoes are paired with wilted spinach and a not-too-heavy cream sauce. A recipe that might feel like a nod toward the wintry months with the use of sausage and cream turns out to be, in fact, flavorful and satisfying.
I’m tinkering with some ideas for carrying this over into the winter months. The recipe relies heavily on the brightness and freshness of the tomatoes — this really should be made around July or August to capture all that in-season goodness. But I also think it has the basic structure for a quick fall-back meal when nothing else is on hand. If you kept a package of frozen tortellini in the freezer, a store of canned tomatoes in the cupboard, and had spinach, half & half, and grated Parmesan cheese on hand on a regular basis, this could be a quick and easy fall-back recipe for nights when energy is low or a trip to the grocery store just isn’t in the cards, no matter what time of year.
[tasty-recipe id=”3839″]
