Pork Sausage Rigatoni in a Creamy Sauce
with Bell Pepper & Lemon
- Wheat
- Milk
Are you the type of person who only goes to sporting events for that huge Italian sausage and pepper hoagie? We’re right there with you. This week, our chefs took the beloved dish from stadium fare to elegant weeknight dinner with a few delicious twists. First, they dropped the bready bun and replaced it with al dente rigatoni. The tasty tubes are tossed in an ultra-creamy sauce studded with crispy bits of pork sausage and sweet sautéed bell pepper. Psst—did we mention there’s Parmesan cheese in the sauce and sprinkled on top? Yeah, it’s safe to say this dish knocks it out of the park.
Ingredients
6 ounce
Rigatoni Pasta
(Contains: Wheat)
¼ cup
Parmesan Cheese
4 tablespoon
Sour Cream
2 tablespoon
Cream Cheese
(Contains: Milk)
1 unit
Lemon
1 unit
Tomato
1 teaspoon
Chili Flakes
2 unit
Scallions
1 unit
Bell Pepper
9 ounce
Italian Pork Sausage
Not included in your delivery
1 teaspoon (tsp)
Olive Oil
teaspoon (tsp)
Salt
teaspoon (tsp)
Black Pepper
1 tablespoon (tbsp)
Butter
(Contains: Milk)
Nutrition Values
Utensils
Cooking Steps
• Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Wash and dry all produce. • Halve, core, and thinly slice bell pepper into strips. Trim and thinly slice scallions, separating whites from greens. Dice tomato into ½-inch pieces. Zest and quarter lemon. • Remove sausage* from casing; discard casing.
• Heat a drizzle of olive oil in a large pan over medium-high heat. Add bell pepper and scallion whites; cook, stirring, until slightly softened, 3-4 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.
• Add sausage to pan; cook, breaking up meat into pieces, until browned and cooked through, 4-6 minutes. • Season with salt and pepper. If you like things spicy, stir in a pinch of chili flakes and cook until fragrant, 15 seconds. TIP: If there’s excess grease in your pan, carefully pour it out.
• Once water is boiling, add rigatoni to pot. Cook until al dente, 9-11 minutes. • Reserve ½ cup pasta cooking water, then drain.
• Add tomato to pan with sausage mixture and cook until softened, 1-2 minutes. Reduce heat to medium low. • Stir in cream cheese, sour cream, half the Parmesan (save the rest for serving), ¼ cup reserved pasta cooking water, and 1 TBSP butter until thoroughly combined. (For 4 servings, use 1⁄3 cup reserved pasta cooking water and 2 TBSP butter.) • Season with salt, pepper, and lemon zest to taste. Add drained rigatoni and toss to coat. TIP: If needed, stir in more reserved pasta cooking water a splash at a time until pasta is coated in a creamy sauce.
• Divide pasta between bowls. Sprinkle with scallion greens, remaining Parmesan, and a pinch of chili flakes if desired. Serve with lemon wedges on the side.
Customer reviews
Review summary
Updated on Apr 2026- Flavor: Many love the creamy sauce with lemon zest brightening the rich flavors, though some find it bland and suggest adding garlic or Italian seasoning.
- Ease of prep: Super easy and quick to make, though removing sausage from casing can be messy and time-consuming for some cooks.
- Suggestions: Add garlic, Italian seasoning, or extra cheese for more flavor; consider draining excess grease from sausage during cooking.
- Leftovers: Generous portions with plenty left over, and many say it tastes even better reheated the next day.
- Pasta size: Large rigatoni noodles divide opinion — some love them while others prefer smaller pasta like penne that holds sauce better.
Reviews from our home cooks
Love the creamy sauce on the rigatoni. The pork sausage adds such an amazing flavor to this dish. The bell peppers are an added bonus. I love rigatoni, but my family would have preferred a smaller noodle like penne. Either way, everyone's plates were clean.
Surprisingly yummy. I'm not a red sauce fan but my husband is, so I thought he would enjoy. I was going to turn it into two meals for him but changed my mind when I tasted it. The sauce was a creamy light tomato with a hint of lemon and paired with chicken sausage gave it added depth.
The squeeze of lemon juice was the nicest finish to this dish. The chicken sausage was a little dry for my taste. I also added a clove of garlic to my preparation with the scallions and peppers.
Creamy but still bright and not overly heavy. Rigatoni was perfect for the sauce. Easy recipe to follow.
The Pork Sausage Rigatoni in a Creamy Sauce with Bell Pepper & Lemon was so delicious and flavorful. Simple ingredients and easy to make.
This is a good and fairly easy recipe. I prefer all cream cheese and no sour cream especially when the sour cream is of a very low quality and taste pretty nasty. Would like this recipe with a smaller pasta size to mix it more throughout the dish rather than the chunky rigatoni jumbo size. Produce and meat quality still needs serious improvement.
The rigatoni noodles were too big. Maybe a pene pasta would work better as the rigatoni almost needed cutting in half to eat them in a bite with the sausage and peppers. The cream sauce was a little too tangy with the sour cream--maybe use heavy cream instead to cut down on that tang.
Flavors were delicious and sauce was nice and creamy. My only change would be to add more red bell pepper in the recipe. To balance out the sausage component.
I think I order this almost every single time it pops up on the menu. It is SO good. The bell pepper with the scallions and chicken sausage is just perfect. It's also very easy and quick to cook up which is always something I love from a pasta dish.
I switched out the cream cheese for a dairy-free version and left out the cheese, but I didn't feel like anything was missing. So creamy and delicious. The bell pepper and sausage were of great quality.
