Ranch Pesto Pasta With Chicken Sausage - A hearty pasta casserole that comes together easily with convenient fully cooked chicken sausage, ranch dressing and jarred pesto.
Recipe photos updated on 6/8/16!
I cook a lot of pasta. I mean A. LOT. I am Italian, it sort of goes with the territory (If you don't believe me, here are 68 pasta recipes I've posted on the this blog). The problem is, around this house, I like a simple fresh chopped tomato, type sauce, one of the kids wants pesto and the husband just wants meat to be involved. This Ranch Pesto Pasta dish gives us the best of all worlds.
Because I've used some convenient, store-bought ingredients, this recipe comes together easily for a weeknight meal. I know the bottled ranch dressing seems like a weird ingredient for a baked pasta dish but the tomatoes combined with the ranch and pesto create a flavorful and zesty sauce. Trust me!
You can use any large pasta shape you want but I think the lines in the rigatoni are perfect for holding on to all the little bits of flavor.
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Ranch Pesto Pasta With Chicken Sausage
Ingredients
- 16 oz Rigatoni pasta
- 1 T Olive Oil or butter
- 5 Chicken Sausage Links Italian or Sun Dried Tomato variety work well here (Full Cooked variety)
- ½ C Ranch dressing prepared
- ½ C Pesto prepared
- 28 oz Diced tomatoes drained
- 2 C Mozzarella cheese shredded
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350.
- Cook rigatoni according to package instructions but undercook by about 3 minutes (it will continue to cook in oven). Drain pasta and return to pan.
- While rigatoni is cooking, slice sausage. Heat oil or butter in large saute pan. . Add sausage and cook, stirring often until browned.
- Stir ranch dressing, pesto, tomatoes and 1 C of the cheese into pasta. Stir in sausage.
- Transfer mixture into a 9x13 baking dish. Top with remaining cup of cheese. Bake uncovered 20 minutes.
- Enjoy!
Below are the embarrassingly terrible original photos of the Ranch Pesto Pasta with Chicken Sausage.
Paula Jones says
This looks really good, seems like it would be flavorful with ranch and pesto.
Terri Henkels says
I love the combination of ingredients and the pesto is a great way to enhance the flavors. I also like that you are using chicken! Great Recipe.
jessica says
I found this recipe on Pinterest and just made it last night! Delicious and easy!
linda spiker says
Fabulous and that melted cheese!!!!
Healing Tomato says
I really like a re-visit recipe post. What a brilliant idea! It is a great way of seeing how much you have grown since that post. Love this recipe because it truly is a comfort food recipe.
foodyschmoody says
Thanks! While it is fun to see how far I've come, I honestly cringe when I see how bad my old photos are!