I love it when a recipe comes together

A while ago I was rummaging in my pantry and I noticed that we had quite a few boxes of spaghetti. Now I love me some spaghetti with marinara or equivalent sauce but even I get tired of that. So I start to think of different ways to use the spaghetti and I remember having the pasta in a browned butter sauce a long time ago. I remember how I really liked it. I kicked the idea around with the hubby and on grocery day I picked up the needed ingredients.

Garlic Brown Butter Spaghetti with Spinach and Sausage.

1 pound of spaghetti noodles
4 pre-cooked sausages
4 oz rinsed and coarsely chopped spinach
1 1/2 sticks of salted butter
1.5 T of Garlic (can use less if desired)
1/2 cup of shredded Italian cheese blend (mine was Asiago, Parmesan and Romano)
2 T cream (optional)
Salt and pepper to taste

Bring 4 quarts of salted water to boil. Cook spaghetti per directions. Reserve a cup of the cooking water once you drain it.

While spaghetti is cooking, slice sausages and cook with spinach in a medium sauce pan. Cook until spinach is starting to wilt and the sausage is warmed through.

I used this type of sausage. They were pretty tasty.

 

Slice the butter and melt in a separate pan with the garlic. You want to slice the butter to ensure that it melts evenly.
 

Cook the melted butter and garlic down until the butter gets a nice rich golden brown color. You want to keep a close eye on it because it doesn't take long for it to go from browned butter to burnt butter. The butter will have a nutty smell to go along with the garlic. Trust me it smelled so good while I was cooking. If you want you can add the cream to add a touch of creaminess to the sauce. Add the sausage and spinach giving it a quick toss and then add in the drained spaghetti noodles. Add the cheese and toss until everything is coated. You can add some of the reserved cooking water if you want to thin out the sauce if desired. I found I didn't need to. It coated the noodles just fine.

 

Plate and serve with some garlic bread. It was so good. The flavor of the noodles didn't get lost in the sauce, something I find that happens many times with tomato based sauces. And surprisingly it wasn't greasy at all. The sauce was very light and the spinach added a pop of freshness to the dish. I think next time I will brown the butter just a little bit more as I didn't get as much of the nutty flavor from the butter as I was expecting. And I think I'll try it with some Linguica or maybe some Andouille sausage.