This Italian Sausage & Tortellini Skillet is a quick and delicious meal that cooks all in one pan using just five ingredients. It’s a weeknight meal meal that you’re entire family will be begging you to make over and over again!
This post and photos have been updated form 2014.
One Pan Meals are the kind of dinners you need in your weeknight recipe arsenal. They are quick, they are easy, and if you’re grabbing them from my site, I can guarantee they’re delicious! This Italian Sausage & Tortellini Skillet is a family favorite and is something my kids cheer for. It’s a blog favorite too, clinching one of the top spots for the past three years with nearly 1 million annual views.
It had been ages since I’ve made this dish so I decided it was time for a reboot. The recipe calls for 20 ounces of refrigerated tortellini. I typically will pick up the 2-packs at Costco and one of those is the perfect size. Buitoni also makes a refrigerated tortellini in the 20 ounce package which you can see HERE. (affiliate link) If you can’t find the 20 ounce package, just substitute two of the 9 ounce packages and you’ll be fine.
A lot of comments I get ask about the type of tortellini. I have only used refrigerated tortellini with this recipe. However, a lot of readers have shared that they used frozen and it turned out beautifully! You’ll just need to adjust the cooking time slightly.
This time around I didn’t make many changes, other than to add some onion and garlic, which I think are totally optional. They really do add another depth of flavor but do add about 10 minutes to the prep and cooking time. It’s a personal preference – you can easily omit those two ingredients.
My Italian Sausage and Tortellini Skillet is easy, it’s delicious and it’s a quick meal to get on the table when you’re in a hurry. With a quick prep of just 5-10 minutes, and a cook time of just 15 minutes, you’ll have dinner on the table in no time. The tortellini is tender and flavorful, with an extra boost from being cooked right in the sauce. The sausage give a nice savory salty, or even spicy bite that compliments the creamy cheese. There are two methods for melting the cheese, but my favorite is under the broiler where you get those lovely crunchy brown bits as the mozzarella broils. The leftovers are amazing, too!
Italian Sausage & Tortellini Skillet:
Italian Sausage & Tortellini Skillet
Prep
Cook
Total
Yield 4-6 servings
Ingredients
- 1 pound ground Italian Sausage
- 20 ounce package of fresh cheese Tortellini
- 3 cups spaghetti sauce (1 24-ounce jar)
- 1/2 cup water
- 1 teaspoon Italian Seasoning
- 1 1/2 cups freshly shredded Mozzarella Cheese
- 1/2 cup freshly shredded Parmesan cheese
- Fresh chopped parsley or basil for garnish (optional)
Instructions
- Heat an oven safe skillet over medium-high heat. Crumble in sausage and cook through, until no longer pink. Drain off some of the fat, if necessary.
- Stir in spaghetti sauce, water, Italian seasoning water, and tortellini.
- Bring mixture to a boil, turn heat down to low, cover and simmer for about 8 minutes or until tortellini is tender. You could also simmer with the lid off, but you'll want to keep stirring it with this method.
- Remove from heat. Sprinkle Mozzarella and Parmesan evenly over tortellini. Cover for about 5 minutes until cheeses are melted. Alternatively, you could place pan under the broiler in your oven on low for 2-3 minutes until cheese is melted and bubbly (preferred method).
- Garnish with fresh parsley or basil, if desired.
Notes
Sometimes I like to add some onion and garlic to this dish. Before cooking the sausage, I add about a tablespoon of olive oil to the hot skillet and then about 1 cup of diced onion. Cook it until it starts to soften, then add a couple cloves of minced garlic and the sausage. Continue with the recipe as written.
Courses Dinner
Cuisine Italian
Love this Italian Sausage & Tortellini Skillet? Here are some more quick and easy one pan meals:
One Pan Cheesy Beef & Tomato Pasta Skillet
Italian Chicken & Veggies Sheet Pan Dinner
One Pan Ham & Cheese Tortellini
15 Minutes Tortellini & Broccoli Alfredo
For all One Pan Meals go HERE, for all dinner recipes go HERE and for the Recipe Index go HERE.
That cheese is making me swoon! Your skillet recipes are all amazing!
This looks amazing! So far, all of your one-pot meals have been great. 🙂
Thank you Beverly!
how many servings is this
How many would you say this serves?
It serves about four.
since there are 6 people would i just double every ingredient?
The recipe makes at least 4 servings. Doubling the ingredients would double the cook time as well, and you’d want to use a larger pot…maybe a 5-6 quart soup pot?
think it would work with frozen cheese tortellini?
I would defrost it first. But I’d also be afraid it would add some liquid. It’s definitely worth try though!
I just made this using frozen because fresh wasn’t available at my grocery store. The only thing I did differently was let everything simmer without a lid to get the excess water out. It turned out great! YUM!!! Thanks for the recipe, we’ll definitely be eating this again!
Do you drain the olive oil before adding the sauce and tortellini?
You can if you like.
Any idea how many calories are in this dish. By the way, I made mine with homemade turkey sausage.
where do you find fresh tortellini
It’s in the refrigerated section, usually near the lunch meat and cheese.
Could you sub Alfredo sauce for spaghetti? I’m thinking of trying it that way and am slightly afraid.
I haven’t tried that so I can’t say if it would work or not. If you try it, let us know how it goes!
Ok so I made this today for dinner. I was really tired after a long day, and this was so simple. It’s also DELICIOUS. Seriously, so good. The only sorta problem is that I didn’t get the pasta all the way under the sauce and I had to cook it a little longer, but it was worth it. This is so easy and delicious.
Can you substitute ground beef for the sausage?
I will try to be nice… but when you are cooking in your kitchen — you can do ANYTHING YOU WANT !!
There are no rules…. if you want to use seaweed instead of tortellini — you could do that to.
It just amazes me that people ask the most ridiculous questions.
How is that “trying to be nice” exactly? It was incredibly rude and disrecpectful actually.
It just amazes me that people leave the most ridiculous comments like they’re better than everyone else.
do you know the calories and serving size?
I made this for dinner tonight but substituted venison for sausage and added a cup and a half of finely chopped mushrooms. It was delicious and there’s enough left over so I don’t have to cook tomorrow. Thank you! This site is awesome!
That sounds yummy!!! I love mushrooms but my 5 year old isn’t so sure about them. I did add corn to the skillet though since we all like corn.
I’ve made the Italian Sausage and Tortellini Skillet a few times before and love it! I can’t seem to find the ingredients this time.
Thanks for your message. We are working on some technical issues, but I am seeing the recipe when I click on the post. Please clear your cache on your internet browser and try again. Thanks!
I can see the recipe now. Thank you for your help!
What kind of jar sauce did you use? I typically make my our sauce but was looking for a quicker method and wasn’t sure what jar sauces taste good?
How many servings for this reipe?
It makes approximately 4-6 servings.
Thank you so much for this recipe!! 🙂 My husband devoured this! He told me this is the BEST meal I’ve ever made! He went back for thirds saying he couldn’t stop eating this because it was so good! 🙂
I made this tonight, with a few modifications. I started by sauteing some diced onion in olive oil, then adding the Italian sausage (I used the “hot and spicy” version and poured off most of the grease after it was cooked through.) Like some other folks, I could not find fresh tortellini at my grocery store, so I used frozen. I boiled the tortellini for about 1.5 minutes then added to the pan along with a jar of marinara sauce. I let this simmer for a few minutes before grating some parmesan cheese into the pan. Finally, I added some chunks of fresh mozzarella and covered the pan to allow the cheese to melt. The result was fantastic! I’ve been trying to eat less pasta and finding this recipe will certainly not help me to achieve that goal.
Excellent.
I like the idea but would probably use ground beef, or something with way less salt/sodium. the high taste of salt was a turn off and made the dish pretty inedible, even for my husband who loves salt.
Try using a jarred sauce with less sodium. The sausage rarely has high sodium… I’ve made this a few times and it has never been salty. Try substituting ingredients for old people it may help your sensitive to salt palette.
I omitted the olive oil as the sausage renders a fair amount of grease and then added chopped onion and chopped garlic to the pan. Sautéed until onion translucent. Drained the oil, wiped out the pan with a paper towel and then added the sauce to the sausage mixture. Before adding the mozzarella and parm I blobbed on spoonfuls of ricotta. YUM.
This is such a simple and effective method to cook the fresh tortellini ‘just right’. I added a little more water, and the texture was perfect. My teenage son loved it and went back for a huge pile of seconds.
I used sliced Italian sausages because I didn’t read very carefully! However it was amazing and my husband and son both loved it. I appreciated not having to boil the tortellini separately. We just made it the second time. Thanks very much!
Hi Kristin! Ty for sharing!! Easy and quick so we love this recipe. Just in the midst of serveing it to my hubby, 6 yr old twins, 9 yr old son and 2 yr old granddaughter, I think its already a hit. Normally I make almost everything from scratch, so kinda felt like I shorted myself and fam (due to time constraints) but honestly, amp up the mozzarella and parm a little and ur golden! Ty Kristin for sharing.
I am on a diet and have started cooking more at home so I googled quick recipes because I have a hectic schedule so I came upon the Italian sausage and tortellini dish and made it tonight and it was awesome. I don’t want my family to eat what I have to eat and it not have flavor. This turned out really delicious.
First time making it and I think I used WAY too much tortellini. I bought two 12 oz bags of it because the recipe called for 24 oz, but now there’s way too much.
Going to just use one bag next time.
Definitely a personal preference! 🙂
Just made this tonight. So quick, easy and delicious!!! Thank you for this recipe…can’t wait to make it again!!!
From start to finish, about how long did this take? (with fresh pasta)
This was amazing! I cooked the sausage first and used an iron skillet, which caused some of the sausage to stick to the bottom and get really crispy. I took out the sausage and cooked some onions and garlic, when it was almost done I put in the seasonings, that helps bloom the spices. Then I used chicken broth instead of water and I needed way more than 1/2 cup, which is fine by me. The end result was amazing! I will definitely be making this again!