No-Boil Creamy Tortellini Skillet

A pasta dinner can be a quick and easy meal, or it can be a lengthy one that involves boiling the pasta and building a delicious sauce to go with it. But you can have it both ways. With this easy one-dish dinner, you get a creamy layered sauce and you don’t have to boil a single noodle. (Or in this case, a single tortellini.)

This has a lot of flavor going on (like, a lot) but it’s done in under thirty minutes (and in just one skillet). There’s mushrooms and sun-dried tomatoes and garlic, and then a quick sauce that’s built with butter, cream, chicken broth, nutty Parmesan, and some chili flake and basil.

Once that’s thickened to your liking, you stir in some cheese tortellini, spinach, Italian sausage, and the sun-dried tomatoes and mushroom mixture. See? It’s pretty much packed with layered flavor.

You just want to make sure the tortellini is pressed down into the liquid from the sauce and then it heads into the oven for a few minutes where the tortellini get perfectly tender. Since they simmer in the sauce in the oven, they really take on the flavor of the sauce rather than just being surrounded by it.

I love a meal that’s done in less than thirty minutes, and this one just so happens to taste like it took much, much longer.

No-Boil Creamy Tortellini Bake

25 minutes to prepare serves 4

Ingredients

  • 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, divided
  • 1 jar sun-dried tomatoes, drained and coarsely chopped
  • 8 oz baby Bella mushrooms, sliced
  • 2 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon dried basil
  • 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flake
  • 1 1/4 cup whole milk
  • 1/2 cup heavy cream
  • 3/4 cup chicken broth
  • 3/4 cup Parmesan cheese, grated and divided
  • 1 (9 oz) package refrigerated cheese tortellini
  • 1/2 lb precooked Italian sausage, sliced
  • 2 cups baby spinach
  • Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Preparation

  1. Preheat oven to 425°F and move a rack to the upper third of the oven.
  2. Add 2 tablespoons butter to a large skillet and place over medium-high heat. Add mushrooms and cook until starting to soften, 2-3 minutes. Add sun-dried tomatoes and cook 2 minutes more. Add garlic and cook until fragrant, about 1 minute. Remove contents from skillet and set aside.
  3. Add remaining butter to skillet. Once melted, whisk in flour and cook, whisking constantly, for 2 minutes.
  4. Gradually whisk in milk, cream, and chicken broth. Cook, stirring occasionally, until mixture thickens, about 5 minutes. Stir in 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese, basil, red pepper flake, and season to taste with salt and pepper.
  5. Once cheese has melted, remove from heat and stir in sausage, tortellini, mushroom and tomato mixture, and spinach.
  6. Press tortellini down into liquid, top with remaining Parmesan and place in oven.
  7. Bake for 8 minutes, stir, and continue cooking until tortellini are tender, 3-5 minutes more. Enjoy!

Recipe adapted from Chelsea's Messy Apron.

Whizzco for LPE