This Easy Dinner Only Needs One Skillet and 15 Minutes

Keep a bag of frozen tortellini tucked away in your freezer and you can rest easy knowing that a quick meal is always at the ready. This series on fast tortellini dinners will show you how to transform frozen tortellini into dinner using pantry staples and a few surprising techniques. Pasta sauce is just the beginning!

You already know that frozen tortellini makes for a hassle-free dinner, but what if you could make it even simpler? Turn it into a delicious one-skillet situation with a formula of veggies + sausage + tortellini. One week you can try a spicy chicken sausage with red peppers and broccoli florets, and another week it’s Italian herbed sausage to go with your tortellini and sautéed fennel. Go wild with something new every week! We promise the 30-minute cook time won’t change.

One-skillet dinners deserve all the praise they receive for their ease in both prep and cleanup. Toss a few ingredients in, cook and serve them up, wash out the skillet, and call it a night. This tortellini skillet also leans on sautéed vegetables and sausage to give you in a well-rounded meal that will please everyone at the table.

Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat on the stove. Toss in some sausage — either go for uncooked, loose sausage that you brown and cook in the pan or make it extra easy on yourself and buy precooked chicken sausage that you simply need to slice before browning in the pan. Then add your favorite green vegetable to the skillet, like broccoli florets, cut asparagus, or chopped kale or broccoli rabe. Season the mix with salt and pepper, sauté for a couple of minutes, then toss in a bag of frozen tortellini and a splash of chicken or vegetable broth. Bring to a simmer, cover the skillet, and let everything cook for about 10 minutes, or until the vegetables are tender, the tortellini is al dente, and the liquid has absorbed. Squeeze over some lemon and serve.