Rigatoni with Shredded Brussel Sprouts and Bacon is our new go to pasta recipe. Full of delicious flavor, this pasta dish is the best!
I have a terrible problem where I make a recipe that we all love, and then I never, ever make it again. I very rarely follow recipes, so I really don’t have a source of reference when it comes to wanting to repeat a meal. We have a few go to meals that I rotate in and out each week, pasta with chicken and broccoli, tacos, chili, and a few others, but for the most part, I create our dinners on the fly as I’m cooking it. There are so many ideas I want to try, that I just don’t want to repeat! Although, since baby #2 has come although, I’ll admit that my creativity in the kitchen has definitely wained!
So, this recipe is kind of a big deal because I have made it TWICE in the last few weeks. Seriously, this is something that never happens! We loved it so much the first time that I went and bought the ingredients again the very next week. It is so simple, rigatonis, shredded sprouts, lots of garlic, and crispy bacon, but the marriage of the sprouts and bacon is just so darn good with the rigatoni. As my husband told me one night as we ate some pretty plain sprouts, “brussel sprouts without bacon is just sad.” I have to agree.
This dinner all began with me finding shredded brussel sprouts at the grocery store. I love sprouts but hate getting them ready to cook. Shredded sprouts is such a time saver and don’t cost much more than non-shredded! These are so quick to cook and make getting dinner together much faster! If you can’t find pre-shredded sprouts, I would run them through the food processor and you’ll get the same result!
If you are looking for a new pasta dish, I can’t recommend this one enough! Perfect for a weeknight meal, we will be having this rigatoni with shredded brussel sprouts and bacon all the time!
Ingredients
- 1 lb rigatoni noodles
- 1 lb. bag of shredded brussel sprouts
- 8 slices of thick cut bacon, diced into small pieces
- 3 garlic cloves, minced
- 1/4 cup Italian seasoned bread crumbs
- 1/4 cup good quality parmesan cheese, plus more for sprinkling
- 1/4 cup olive oil + 2 tbsp. olive oil or more to taste
- Salt
- Pepper
- 1/4 tsp. red pepper flakes, optional
Instructions
- Bring a pot of salted water to boil and prepare rigatoni according to box instructions.
- In a large skillet, pour in 1 tbsp. olive oil. Once heated, add bacon. Cook until crisp and then remove from the pan and set aside.
- Pour most of bacon grease out of pan, leaving enough to coat the bottom of the pan.
- Add brussel sprouts, salt, pepper, breadcrumbs, and garlic cloves to the pan. Add the pepper flakes if using. Cook until softened, about 7-8 minutes. Stir occasionally to prevent sticking.
- Once rigatoni is finished, drain and return to pan. Pour brussel sprout mixture into the pan with the rigatoni and add the bacon and the parmesan cheese. Add additional olive oil until you reach your desired oiliness. Add salt and pepper to taste.
- Serve immediately with parmesan cheese.
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Seriously delicious!
Make sure your pasta is started first – you don’t want the Brussels sprouts overcooked. The dish is done very quickly. I didn’t use any oil. After removing bacon, I added about 2 T water to the pan to deglaze and added sprouts and garlic. Put about 1 T bacon grease back in to finish cooking. Last, add bread crumbs.
Instead of Italian bread crumbs, I used seasoned Panko as it was what I had on hand.
You could easily leave Parmesan out and let people add as desired. For folks who love Brussels sprouts, they might not want as much as the recipe uses as it kind of masks the taste of the sprouts.
I’m so glad you loved it Robin! We love parmesan cheese, but I agree you could serve it on the side as well!!