Crockpot Tortellini with Sausage, Spinach and Cream Cheese

This crockpot tortellini with sausage, spinach and cream cheese is a creamy tomato pasta that cooks in a 6-quart slow cooker and serves six.

The sauce is browned Italian sausage, marinara, diced tomatoes and broth, with a block of cream cheese melted in near the end so it turns pale red and thick without any heavy cream.

The tortellini and spinach go in last, after the sauce has finished its slow cooking, because cheese tortellini left in a slow cooker for hours swells up and splits open.

Plan on about 4 and a half hours from browning the sausage to dinner, almost all of it unattended.

Why You’ll Love It

• One pound of sausage and a jar of marinara do most of the flavor work
• Cream cheese instead of heavy cream, so the sauce stays thick when reheated
• Tortellini cooks for 15 to 20 minutes, not 4 hours, so it keeps its shape
• Serves 6 from a standard 6-quart slow cooker
• Browning the sausage is the only stovetop step
• Works on low for a workday or on high for a 2-hour afternoon

Ingredients

For the Sauce

1 lb bulk Italian sausage, mild or hot

1 small yellow onion, diced

3 garlic cloves, minced

1 jar (24 oz) marinara sauce

1 can (14.5 oz) diced tomatoes, drained

1 1/2 cups low-sodium chicken broth

1 teaspoon Italian seasoning

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes (optional)

For Finishing

8 oz block cream cheese, cut into 1-inch cubes and left out to soften

1 package (20 oz) refrigerated cheese tortellini

5 oz fresh baby spinach, about 4 packed cups

1/2 cup finely grated Parmesan, plus more for serving

Steps

1. Brown the sausage and onion in a 12-inch nonstick skillet over medium-high heat for 6 to 8 minutes, breaking the meat into small crumbles with a wooden spoon, until no pink remains and the edges have some color.

2. Stir in the garlic for the last 30 seconds, then tilt the skillet and spoon off all but about 1 tablespoon of the fat, because the rest would pool on top of the sauce in the slow cooker.

3. Scrape the sausage and onion into a 6-quart programmable slow cooker and add the marinara, drained tomatoes, broth, Italian seasoning, salt, pepper and red pepper flakes, stirring until the broth and marinara are one color.

4. Cover and cook on low for 4 hours or on high for 2 hours, which is enough time for the tomatoes to lose their raw edge and the sausage flavor to move into the sauce.

5. Switch the slow cooker to high if it was on low, scatter the softened cream cheese cubes over the sauce, cover, and leave them for 10 minutes to warm through.

6. Stir and then whisk the sauce with a silicone whisk for about a minute until the cream cheese is fully melted and the sauce is an even pale red with no white streaks, since any lumps left now will not melt once the pasta is in.

7. Add the tortellini and the spinach, pressing the spinach down under the sauce so it wilts, then cover and cook on high for 15 to 20 minutes, until the tortellini are tender, puffed and floating to the top.

8. Do not leave it longer than 20 minutes at this stage, because refrigerated tortellini goes from tender to mushy quickly in a hot sauce.

9. Stir in the Parmesan, taste for salt, and serve straight from the insert with more Parmesan grated over each bowl.

Helpful Tips & Substitutions

Buy refrigerated tortellini, not dried, because refrigerated pasta cooks through in 15 to 20 minutes while dried tortellini needs 30 minutes or more and drinks up so much liquid that the sauce turns to paste.

Frozen cheese tortellini also works, added straight from the freezer with no thawing, but give it 25 to 30 minutes on high and check one piece from the middle before serving.

The cream cheese has to be soft and in small cubes before it goes in, because a cold block sits in the hot sauce in one lump and never fully blends.

Drain the diced tomatoes, since the extra juice turns this from a pasta into a thin soup, and if you want the sauce looser at the end add warm broth 1/4 cup at a time.

Hot Italian sausage makes the red pepper flakes unnecessary, and sweet sausage with fennel gives a milder, more rounded sauce.

Ground turkey or chicken can replace the sausage, but add 1 tablespoon of olive oil to the skillet, an extra teaspoon of Italian seasoning and 1/2 teaspoon of crushed fennel seed, because plain poultry has none of the seasoning that sausage brings.

A 10-oz box of frozen chopped spinach can stand in for fresh if you thaw it and squeeze it dry in a clean towel first, then stir it in along with the cream cheese so it has time to heat through.

The marinara is half the sauce, so pick a jar whose ingredient list starts with tomatoes rather than water or sugar, and skip anything labeled as a chunky garden style, which breaks the smooth texture.

This fills a 6-quart slow cooker about two thirds full, so in a 4-quart model halve everything and keep the same times.

Serving Ideas

Serve it in shallow bowls with Parmesan grated over the top on a microplane grater and a few torn basil leaves if you have them.

Garlic bread is the obvious side, and store-bought frozen slices toasted under the broiler for 2 to 3 minutes are fine here because the sauce is rich enough to carry the meal.

A plain romaine salad with lemon juice, olive oil and salt cuts through the cream cheese better than a creamy dressing would.

If you want more pasta dinners from the slow cooker, the Crockpot Creamy Tuscan Chicken Pasta and the Effortless Crockpot Ravioli Lasagna use the same kind of hands-off cooking with filled pasta.

For other ways to use a pound of Italian sausage in the slow cooker, the 9 Crockpot Sausage Dinners roundup covers soups, pasta and sausage with peppers.

Make-Ahead & Storage

Brown the sausage and onion up to 2 days ahead and keep them in a covered container in the fridge, which cuts the day-of work to pouring things into the insert.

You can also assemble the whole sauce in the removable insert the night before, cover it and refrigerate, then set it in the base in the morning and add 30 minutes to the low cook time because the insert starts cold.

Leftovers keep for 3 days in an airtight container in the fridge, and glass meal prep containers reheat better than plastic since the sauce goes straight from fridge to microwave without staining.

The tortellini keeps absorbing sauce overnight, so leftovers are softer and thicker on day two and reheat best in a saucepan over medium-low heat with 2 to 3 tablespoons of broth or milk stirred in per serving.

In the microwave, heat a bowl for 2 minutes, stir, then give it another 30 to 60 seconds, because the cream cheese sauce heats unevenly and the center stays cold.

Do not freeze the finished dish, because frozen cooked tortellini turns mealy and the cream cheese sauce separates and goes grainy when it thaws.

The sauce alone freezes well for 3 months if you stop after step 4, before the cream cheese goes in, then thaw it in the fridge overnight, heat it on high in the slow cooker and pick up at step 5.

Everything thickens as it sits because the tortellini keeps drinking up sauce, so if dinner happens in two shifts, keep the slow cooker on warm and stir a splash of broth into the second round before serving.