Pizza Rigatoni
A Slow-Cooker Recipe to serve a few or a crowd… It’s like a casserole, with pizza ingredients, and a perfect Pot-Luck dish!
Have I mentioned the power of the Pot-Luck? Outside of Texas, this may be called a “Hot Dish”… so now you’re bilingual!
This is where different people bring different dishes…Somehow there is always an assortment of delicious salads, casseroles, slow-cooker favorites, and desserts.
Our Church Women’s Group hosts five Pot luck meals each year to share speakers and plan service activities. At recent meal, I met Janet, who is part of a dedicated group of people involved with Cadence International Ministries which serve our military community through hospitality, evangelism, discipleship, friendship, and teaching. They are based near our armed forces around the United States and the World.
Over discussions of recipes shared, Janet offered to share one of her recipes served at their weekly Friday night dinners at their Hospitality House. This house is “a home away from home” where servicemen and women find an open door, a comfortable couch, a home-cooked meal, and people who listen, encourage, love, and offer different ministries.
AND…. here’s the recipe (taken from the Taste of Home Slow Cooker Classics)
(cook time 4 hours)
Ingredients:
- 1 1/2 pounds bulk Italian sausage
- 3 cups uncooked rigatoni or large tube pasta
- 4 cups (16 oz.) shredded mozzarella cheese
- 1 can (10 3/4 oz.) condensed cream of mushroom soup, undiluted
- 1 small onion, chopped
- 2 cans (one 15 oz. and one 8 oz.) pizza sauce
- 1 package (3 1/2 oz.) sliced pepperoni
- 1 can (6 oz.) pitted ripe olives, drained and halved (and/or sliced mushrooms)
- In a skillet, cook sausage until no longer pink; drain.
- Cook the pasta according to package directions; drain.
- In a 5-qt. slow cooker, layer half of the sausage, pasta, cheese, soup, onion, pizza sauce, pepperoni and olives. Repeat layers.
- Cover and cook on low for 4 hours.
Tips: for the Hospitality House, Janet says “I make this x4, but mmmm, mmmm.”
Tips: I made this for a Family Reunion weekend to serve to houseguests the night before. Fry sausage day before and let cool and refrigerate in plastic bags until ready to assemble.
Tips: Can made one side with olive and the other side with mushrooms, like a half & half pizza toppings.