Chicken Sausage and Peppers Macaroni Casserole
Chicken Sausage and Peppers Macaroni CasseroleI love a baked pasta dish that doesn’t require having to cook the pasta, why dirty an extra pot? Instead, you pour the sauce over the macaroni and the pasta cooks in the sauce, right in the oven. Although this takes about 55 minutes to bake after you assemble, it’s unassisted cook time so you can go about relaxing while dinner’s in the oven.
If you’ve been following me for a while, you probably know I swear by DeLallo’s whole wheat pasta, it’s the only whole wheat pasta I like and you can’t even tell it’s whole wheat in this dish (I swear). This dish was inspired by the Easy Macaroni Casserole I shared with turkey and veggies. Every time I make it I think, I bet this would be great with sausage and peppers and I was right!
You could easily halve this recipe in a 9 x 9 baking dish to serve four. Leftovers can also be frozen.
Chicken Sausage and Peppers Macaroni Casserole
Ingredients
- 14 ounces chicken sausage, casings removed
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1 cup chopped onion
- 1 medium red pepper, chopped
- 1 medium yellow pepper, chopped
- 3 cloves chopped garlic
- 1 cup sliced mushrooms
- 1 14.5 oz can petite diced tomatoes, drained
- 2 cups marinara sauce, I used my own homemade
- 2 cups water
- 1/2 tsp Italian seasoning or dried thyme
- 1 tsp kosher salt
- 8 oz shredded mozzarella cheese
- 8 oz uncooked DeLallo whole wheat or gluten free elbows
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F.
- In a large deep non-stick skillet, brown the sausage over high heat until cooked through, seasoning with a pinch of salt and breaking it up into smaller pieces as it cooks. Set aside on a dish.
- Add olive oil to the skillet, reduce heat to medium and add the onions,
- garlic and peppers; sauté until the vegetables soft, about 6 to 7
- minutes.
- Return the sausage to the skillet along with the remaining ingredients except for the pasta and cheese.
- Bring to a boil and then lower heat to medium-low and simmer for 10 minutes, until the vegetables are soft.
- Spoon just enough of the sausage/vegetable mixture to cover the bottom of a 9x13 pan.
- Cover with uncooked pasta. Spoon remaining sauce mixture evenly over the top and sprinkle with cheese.
- Cover with foil and bake 50-55 minutes. Remove from oven and let stand, covered, for 15 minutes.
- Divide into 8 servings.
Last Step:
Please leave a rating and comment letting us know how you liked this recipe! This helps our business to thrive and continue providing free, high-quality recipes for you.Nutrition
Disclosure: This post is sponsored by DeLallo. I only share products I use in my own kitchen. I created this recipe and received compensation to do so.
A very tasty, flexible and forgiving recipe. I made it this evening with ingredients on hand — ground turkey instead of sausage, a medium red onion sliced thin, and 8 oz baby bellas. I was absorbed in my audiobook and not paying proper attention while I assembled the casserole, so I missed the instruction to drain the tomatoes and added an entire 24 oz jar of marinara. I also skipped the 10 min simmer. Given all those errors and omissions I expected a very watery result, but it turned out great! This was my first time using uncooked pasta in a casserole, but it won’t be my last😊 Thanks Gina!
Love this recipe, this is a regular in the rotation at my house. I’ve made with all different pasta shapes, rotini, shells, elbows…whatever I have on hand. For anyone in the New England area with a stop and shop nearby, the absolute best chicken sausage to use is the natures promise brand cheese and garlic chicken sausage. Amazing!
I love pasta and always look to SkinnyTaste for great recipes without the guilt. I made this tonight as written and absolutely LOVED it. There are levels of flavor and it’s filling, but not heavy and I loved that the pasta didn’t need to be cooked separately. I couldn’t find whole wheat macaroni so I used plain and kept the cooking time at 50 minutes in the oven…perfect results!! Thank you Gina for another great recipe.
This was delicious and came out perfect! I used Italian sausage, regular elbow pasta, and added chicken bouillon to make it more flavourful. I will definitely make this again.Â
Did you reduce the time any for the regular macaroni ?
The flavors are excellent . I have made this twice, the first time with regular elbows and the second time with while whole wheat elbows . Both times I baked for 50 minutes . The regular pasta salad as slightly overcooked and the whole wheat pasta was perfectly cooked. Â
How would you adjust this recipe if using egg noodles?
So this is delish! The only thing I did different was use regular pasta and jarred (drained well) mushrooms. This was so good my family was ARGUING over who got the leftovers for lunch the next day. I stuck to the serving and had a side salad and was STUFFED.
Think I can cockpot this?
This is Fantastic! Once again, this gal proves she knows what she is doing.Â
You made me crossover!!! Was not a big fan of chicken sausage but when Gina puts in a recipe she can make anything tasty. This was D E L I S H! Has this last night and the hubby said please make me container to take to work for lunch!! He’s not a big mushroom fan but I chopped them up to hide them. This is on the keeper list. I bought leftovers for lunch today also! 🙂
Great! 🙂
Very easy to make and very delicious. I used turkey sausage and regular rotini and it came out nicely.
This is SO good. It is also very, very, filling! I’m looking forward to eating it all week! I forget to get mushrooms, and I had to use turkey sausage. It was delicious.
Can I substitute Delallo whole wheat fusilli pasta instead of maceroni noodles or will that affect the recipe/cooking process? I can find whole wheat maceroni noodles at my store.Â
Pingback: How I meal plan | Adventures of Alex & Emily
We tried this last night and my husband said it was amazing! It is probably going to go into a monthly rotation, especially now that it’s getting cold outside.
I used DeLallo gluten free spiral pasta. The flavors were great but the pasta was pretty mushy and overall it was more like a soup because of all the liquid. I checked it at 30 min and the pasta seemed cooked so I figured it would just get more mushy if I left it in for the full 50 min but maybe that was my mistake. Â Def will try again and see if I can get the time right.Â
Pingback: 100 Weight Watcher Casserole Recipes with Smart Points – Recipe Diaries
Pingback: Baked pasta with mushrooms and peppers | Piwo z Lody
The serving size is 1 & 1/4 cups correct? I made this tonight and we got 6 servings out of it at 1 & 1/4 cups each.
This is DELICIOUS! I used turkey sausage because it was easier to find. I made it to freeze portions for lunches. So yummy!
Am I the only one who ended up with way over-cooked pasta and a runny sauce? I cooked it according to the recipe… I like pasta cooked al dente – thoughts on how to make that happen?
Just made this tonight for dinner…it was so good! The only change I made was to use oregano as the spice and added extra as that’s how I make my sausage and peppers. Gina, thank you so much for all you do! I use your recipes 4-5 nights a week (we have pizza night and leftover night(s) on the other days!) Keep posting your wonderful recipes! Cooking is fun and healthy again!
If you are making this with cooked pasta vs in the casserole, would you delete the 2 cups of water?Â
I made this for my family last night! Everyone loved it!All 5 kids & my notoriously “I hate healthy food” husband! Will def make this again! I doubled the recipe & left out the mushrooms – we are not big mushroom eaters. I also only did one can of diced tomato. It was PERFECT! Well done! And only 8 SP!