This sausage broccoli pasta recipe shows up on my dinner table every few weeks.It comes together in under 30 minutes, my toddler happily eats it, and it’s protein, veg, and carb all in one one-pot meal!  A Simple Version of a Pasta Favorite Orecchiette with Sausage and Broccoli Rabe has always been one of my favorite pasta dishes.The combination of the rich crumbly sausage with the bitter greens and chewy al dente pasta is hard to beat for me.

Our corner of New Jersey is replete with family-owned Italian restaurants.If this dish is on the menu, it’s hard for me not to order it!  That said, the bitter broccoli rabe isn’t everyone’s cup of tea.So at home, I find myself reaching for regular ol’ broccoli crowns.

(A bag of pre-washed florets makes prep even easier!) This recipe is an adaptation of Lidia Bastianich’s Orecchiete with Brococoli Rabe.(See also our version of her excellent Zucchini Bread Lasagna.) Sometimes I find myself making certain recipes all the dang time, but I alter them to suit my family’s needs.When I’ve made that tweaked version enough times, it’s time to document it here on The Woks of Life, not just so I can always come back to them, but also (in an unexpected perk of starting your own food blog) so my husband can cook them without me having to tell him what to do.

I made some adjustments to Lidia’s version, switching in black pepper for crushed red pepper to keep the spice to a minimum and using small b

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