How to Cook Italian Sausage
Italian sausage comes in countless varieties, including familiar types like pepperoni and salami; the kind of sausage most people refer to when they speak of how to cook Italian sausage is "sweet Italian," "spicy Italian" or "hot Italian" (the latter two are typically the same), and it's found in the pork section of the supermarket. Typically made with pork, peppers and Italian seasonings, Italian sausage is most commonly used in pasta dishes or as a topping for pizza, but it can be the centerpiece of many other dishes as well.For a somewhat unexpected take on how to cook Italian sausage, try this dinner recipe for a polenta-sausage bowl. It's a quick and easy, and is ready to serve in 30 minutes.
Transcript
Hey everyone. I'm Judith. Today, I'm gonna be showing you
how to make a Polenta Sausage Bowl, a really hearty
and nutritious Italian dish. So what you're gonna need for
this is 1 16-ounce tube of cooked polenta, 1 pound
of bulk Italian sausage, 1 cup of cherry tomatoes, 8
ounces
of sliced mushrooms, 2 zucchinis which we've sliced lengthways, some
salt and pepper to taste, some grated parmesan cheese to
taste, 1 teaspoon of Italian seasoning, and 1 tablespoon of
cooking oil. So first things first. Let's get our polenta.
Now, for people who don't know what polenta is, it's
actually an Italian dish made with boiled cornmeal and you
can fry polenta, you can grill it, and obviously you
can boil that when you buy it in
powder form, but we have it here and we sliced
it into 12 slices. So, as you can see, we
put it into 12 rings right here. Now, we've got
a baking sheet right here, which we've lightly greased with
some cooking spray, and all we're gonna do is place
our polenta down onto that dish. So now we have
our zucchini, and we're just gonna put that in on
our dish with the polenta like so. So,
let's get our cooking oil and we're just gonna brush
our polenta and zucchini with our oil on both sides.
And last but not least, let's just season that with
some salt and pepper to your liking. I'm a big
salt fan, so I usually put a little bit more
than I should, but that's alright. So, a little bit
of salt, a little bit of pepper. So, we're just
gonna put our polenta and zucchini onto the broiler for
8 to 10 minutes. We'll turn
it once halfway. We wanna get our polenta nice and
golden brown and our zucchini nice and tender. While the
polenta is under the broiler, let's get on with our
meat. Now, here we have our Italian bulk sausage. So,
bulk sausage is basically sausage without the casing. So, what
we need to do is put our heat to medium.
In our skillet, we're gonna put in our Italian sausage
like so, and we're just gonna break it up as
much as
we can. If you can't find bulk Italian sausage, you
can use ground beef as an alternative, but I find
that the pork works really well with the polenta, so
that's why we're using it. So, we're gonna cook this
until it begins to brown, and then after that, we're
gonna add in our mushrooms, our tomatoes and seasoning and
cook for a little bit longer. So, our Italian sausage
has begun to brown. So now it's time to add
in our other ingredients, and just to let you know,
we have drained off any
excess fat in the saucepan there before we put in
our vegetables. So in goes our mushrooms, lovely, and our
tomatoes. So, our vegetables and our tomatoes are in there,
and now, last but not least, let's add in our
Italian seasoning, which is just gonna give it that great
added flavor. So, we're gonna cook that until the Italian
sausage is no longer pink at all, is cooked all
the way through, and our vegetables are nice and tender.
Well, we've taken our polenta and our zucchini out from
under the broiler and all we've done is slice our
zucchini crosswise like so. Now, our polenta has got a
nice light brown color as you can see, so it's
nice and crispy, looking fantastic, and our meat and veg
are done as well. Those tomatoes have softened. They're nice
and juicy. The meat is cooked through. So now it's
time to plate up. This is my favorite part because
I know I'm gonna be eating soon. So, all
we can do is put some of our polenta down
there. Now, as I said, there's so many ways you
can cook polenta, with butter, with cheese, you know, with
different things, vegetables, meat. Let's spoon some of our lovely
sausage mushroom mixture on top of that there, delicious, like
so. And last but not least, let us put some
of our zucchini on there too. We can do it
with our
fingers if we like. Make it look nice and aesthetically
beautiful. Full of color. Just smells delicious too. Wow. And
if you serve this up to friends, they will be
super impressed. And last but not least, let's sprinkle on
our grated parmesan cheese and that's just probably gonna melt
up on top of that hot dish right there. Oh,
just gorgeous. I am so tempted to
eat that right now, but I won't. I will finish
up. Everyone, that's how you make a Polenta Sausage Bowl.
What You'll Need
- 1 16-oz. tube refrigerated polenta with sun-dried tomatoes
- 2 medium zucchini, halved lengthwise
- 1 Tbsp. cooking oil
- 1 lb. bulk Italian sausage
- 1 8-oz. pkg. sliced mushrooms
- 1 cup grape tomatoes
- 1 tsp. dried Italian seasoning, crushed
- Finely shredded Parmesan cheese
Step By Step
1
Preheat broiler. Lightly grease baking sheet. Cut polenta in 12 slices. Place polenta and zucchini on baking sheet. Brush with oil; sprinkle with salt and pepper. Broil 4 to 5 inches from heat for 8 to 10 minutes, until polenta is lightly browned and zucchini is crisp-tender; turning once.
2
Meanwhile, in large skillet cook and break up sausage over medium heat until sausage begins to brown. Drain off fat. Add mushrooms, tomatoes, and seasoning to skillet; cook for 5 minutes, until meat is no longer pink. Slice zucchini crosswise. Spoon sausage mixture and zucchini over polenta. Sprinkle with cheese. Makes 4 servings.
This is a great dinner for the summer months when tomatoes and zucchini are in season; you can use whichever variety of Italian sausage you prefer, spicy or sweet. And have a glass of Chianti with your polenta-sausage bowl -- it will make it an "authentic" Italian meal!
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