I made the Pioneer Woman’s easy one-pan sausage pasta. It’s perfect for a fall weeknight dinner.

To make Drummond’s recipe for one-pan creamy sausage pasta for six, you’ll need:

Drummond recommends using fusilli pasta for this dish, but you can substitute any pasta shape you prefer or have on hand.

And while this may look like a long list of ingredients, you may already have most of them in your kitchen.

This pasta dish required very little prep, which also meant cleanup was a breeze. Aside from a few utensils, I only had to wash the cutting board and skillet I used to prepare the meal.

I let the sausage brown slightly in a large nonstick skillet before breaking it into smaller pieces with a wooden spatula, a task that became easier as the meat cooked.

It took about five minutes for the sausage to lightly brown.

It took another five minutes for the onions to cook and fill my kitchen with a heavenly scent.

The recipe calls for fennel seeds, oregano, and red pepper flakes — all pantry staples I already had on hand, making the prep process even easier.

I stirred the seasonings into the sausage, allowing them to toast slightly in the rendered fat to bring out their flavors. I also added salt and pepper for an extra boost of flavor.

The recipe calls for low-sodium chicken broth, tomato puree, and tomato paste to make the sauce. When I first added the ingredients, I was nervous the sauce would end up too liquidy.

I loved that I didn’t need to use an extra pot to boil water or cook the pasta separately. Everything came together in a single pan, which made the whole process incredibly efficient.

Not only did this save me time, but it also meant fewer dishes to wash — no extra pot or colander required.

After a long day, I really appreciated how simple the whole process was. It took a lot of the stress out of getting dinner on the table on a busy weeknight.

This is how Drummond’s “creamy” Italian sausage pasta gets its name — after adding in the cheese and mascarpone, the sauce became even creamier, with shreds of cheese pulling and swirling throughout the pasta as I stirred it with my spatula.

Drummond recommends garnishing the dish with shaved Parmesan cheese and basil leaves for added brightness.

The sauce, which was creamy and strongly flavored with cheese and mascarpone, clung to the noodles, while the hints of fennel seeds and red pepper flakes brought out the savory flavor of the Italian sausage.

I loved the ease of this one-pan recipe — cooking the pasta noodles in the same pan saved me time and cleanup, and I was impressed by how simple the instructions were to follow.

In fact, it was so simple I’m sure I could recreate this dish from memory next time.

With its rich flavors and effortless cleanup, this recipe proved that a weeknight dinner can feel indulgent without being complicated.