Roasted Sausage, Pepper, and Fennel Raviolini

A weeknight pasta dinner chock full of veggies, a bruschetta-like tomato dressing, and mini stuffed pasta, this raviolini dish is both satisfying and stunning on the plate!

Though my husband comes from an Italian family, he is distinctly not a ‘no sauce pasta’ kind of guy. He likes his red sauces, his vodka sauces, his parmesan creams. So any pasta that arrives at the table unsauced gets a look of deep suspicion from him. Me personally, I think they can be a fun change-up from the typical, but this is a deeply held belief from my husband. So when this Roasted Sausage, Pepper, and Fennel Raviolini arrived at the table, I wasn’t surprised to get his look of skepticism.

But that suspicion was quickly replaced by curiosity. The thing about this dish is that, even though it’s simple to make, there’s a lot going on. Particularly from the vegetable side of things. This raviolini is absolutely stuffed with veggies. It’s spinach ravioli, to start, enhanced by roasted onions, sweet peppers, and fennel, and tossed in a tomato vinaigrette. There’s lots to look at, and it has that appealing quality of every bite tasting just a bit unique.

I start by preparing the smoked sausage, onion, fennel, and mini sweet peppers on the sheet pan. I don’t know how often you cook with fennel, but I love this veggie both raw and roasted. Raw, it has a very crisp, refreshing anise taste; roasted, it gets very mellow and sweet. You don’t have to like black licorice to enjoy fennel–and particularly if you’re roasting it, it just adds this unique sweetness that makes the dish really stand out.

The sausage and veggies go in the oven for 30 minutes, and you will want to move them around at one point during the cooking process so they cook evenly. While that’s cooking, prepare the pasta and the tomato dressing. For the pasta, I bought a tiny little ravioli at Trader Joe’s that is so cute in this dish. It only cooks for one minute, and it’s done. You could always use tortellini or any stuffed pasta. Just follow the cooking instructions on the package. I used spinach and ricotta stuffed raviolini, but have fun with it. Even just cheese tortellini will be delicious here.

The tomato dressing is sort of a take on bruschetta as it has tomatoes, garlic, olive oil, and basil. I used teeny tiny tomatoes so that way I didn’t have to cut them up. Plus, the heat of the pasta and veggies warms them and they have that little pop on your plate that is so fun. If you want to use cherry tomatoes or grape tomatoes, I would probably cut them in half–you will want them to be bite sized.

When the pasta is done cooking, toss it with the tomato dressing and some parm. The trick to this is to do it as soon as you drain the pasta, when it’s really hot. The pasta will still absorb some of the dressing and tomato juices, so it makes it really yummy. Then add in the veggies when they’re done in the oven. I like to add a bit more parm because why not? Then you’re ready to serve!

I know this one has a couple things happening at the same time between the veggies, pasta, and dressing, but all of it is easy and very straightforward. It’s almost like your stadium sausage and peppers walked into a bar and met raviolini and bruschetta and they all had a great conversation. This would be wonderful with a simple arugula and parmesan salad, too. Enjoy!