Crock Pot Sausage and Cheese Tortellini

I'm always trying to find new things that I can make in my crock pot. As a busy professional who has recently gotten addicted to working out (even though I still hate it), I need quick and easy things to make that are done when I get home 7-8pm every night.

I found this recipe on Pinterest (of course). The original link is here Original Recipe. I'm posting it to my blog simply because it may be easier for you to just go to my blog instead of searching through all my pins. Also, I've made a few changes to the recipe to fit it for my taste buds.

Ingredients:

• 1 lb. Italian Sausage (I used the mild kind and then added chopped onion and hot chili pepper.)
• 20 oz. Frozen Three-Cheese Tortellini (The Buitoni kind is in the specialty refrigerated case in the deli area of the grocery store. I popped them right in the freezer when I get home.)
• 32 oz. Low Sodium Chicken Broth
• 2 Cans Diced Tomatoes – The kind that are seasoned with basil, garlic & oregano. If you don’t have the seasoned ones, you’ll need to add in your own seasonings.
• 8 oz. Cream Cheese or Neufchâtel Cheese – I used the low fat kind of cream cheese.
• Grated Parmesan Cheese (not pictured) for topping.

 Step 1: Brown your meat first. This is where I also added my onion and chopped up my peppers. I de-seed my peppers. It's a trick I learned when I used to make my own salsa. All the heat is in the seeds so to cut it down a little, I take them out.

Step 2: Add the sausage and tortellini to your Crock Pot. Pour the tomatoes, liquid and all, and broth over the top. Add your cream cheese to the Pot in chunks. (I have a smaller crock pot so I ended up not using all of the broth only because I didn't want it to overflow. I used about 3/4 of it though.)

Step 3: Give your Crock Pot a good stir to get everything evenly distributed, making sure the liquids are adequately covering the tortellini.
 

 

Step 4: Cook on LOW for a total of 4 1/2 hours. Stir at 2 hours, and again at 4 hours, removing the lid for the last 30 minutes of cooking ( I just set timers on my phone to remind me). This will give the sauce some time to thicken up.

My Review:

I had to move everything from my crock pot to a big pot on my stove after 2 hours. I have a smaller crock pot and so I ended up putting too much inside and it started to overflow. I set it up to simmer for about 30min before I removed it from the heat. I then let it sit, covered, for another 30min before eating. The sauce isn't super thick but not watery either.

It tasted amazing though. I had one small bowl and I was stuffed. I also have a much smaller stomach so I'm thinking for a normal person, one full bowl would be okay as a serving size. I have enough to last me for the whole week.

Overall, I will make this again but I'll scale down the amount of ingredients I use unless I know I'm having a lot of company over.