Spicy Italian Sausage alla Vodka
vodka sauce but make it spicy 🌶️🍝 spicy italian sausage gets browned and crumbled into a creamy tomato vodka sauce that's rich, a little fiery, and clings to every piece of rigatoni. this is one of those recipes that tastes like it came from a restaurant but takes 40 minutes start to finish. weeknight pasta perfection 🫶
Ingredients
1 lb spicy Italian sausage
2-3 servings of rigatoni pasta
2 tbsp butter
1 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp minced garlic
3 tbsp minced shallot
2 tbsp tomato paste
1/2 tsp chili flakes
1 tsp Italian seasoning
1/4 cup vodka
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup pasta water (reserve)
1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
1/2-1 tsp salt (to taste)
1/4 tsp pepper
2 tbsp parsley, chopped
Serves 2-4
Prep time ~10mins
Cook time ~30mins
Cooking Instructions
Heat up 1 tbsp olive oil in a large sauté pan over medium heat. In parallel, boil salted water for your pasta.
Once your sauté pan is hot (1-2mins) add Italian sausage, break it up and leave alone for 5 mins to build a crust. Continue to break up your sausage into pieces until fully cooked (~8-10 mins), then set aside. Meanwhile, add rigatoni pasta to your boiling salted water.
Add 1 tbsp butter to the same sauté pan you cooked the sausage. Add garlic, shallot, chili flakes and cook until fragrant (1-2mins). Add tomato paste into the mixture and cook it down until the tomato paste turns from bright red to dark red (5 mins).
Add vodka and cook for 1 min for the alcohol to cook off. Then add heavy cream and 1 tbsp parsley and mix.
Add pasta and pasta water to the sauce (lower heat if sauce is bubbling too much!). Add 1 tbsp butter, mix. Then add the Italian sausage back in. Add salt and pepper to taste.
Remove from heat, add parmesan cheese and parsley, mix.
Serve immediately and top with parmesan cheese, parsley, drizzle of Graza olive oil if you have it ;)
Tips & Notes
Brown the sausage well — crispy edges add tons of flavor to the sauce
Let the vodka simmer for at least 2–3 min to cook off the raw alcohol taste
No vodka? Sub with a splash of chicken broth or skip — the dish still works
Stir in cream off direct heat or on low to avoid curdling
Save pasta water — a splash helps bring the sauce together when tossing