Italian Skillet Dinner
An easy recipe for a one dish Italian inspired meal.
Ingredients
- 1 lb sausage meat mild, sweet, or hot
- 2-3 tbsp olive oil
- 1 medium red onion
- 2 cloves garlic
- 2 zucchini
- 1 pint grape or cherry tomatoes
- 1 tsp Italian seasoning
- 1 cup shredded cheese Parmesan or four cheese Italian blend
Instructions
- Wash and prepare the vegetables before you begin cooking. Slice the onion. Mince the garlic. Slice the zucchini. I forgot to peel the zucchini but it turns out the peel is actually good for you and entirely edible. Let's pretend I did it on purpose.
- While you are cooking the meat and vegetables, cook some pasta according to the package directions. I used a mix of leftover pastas - rigatoni and penne. Any tube shaped pasta is fine.
- Heat one tablespoon of olive oil in a deep skillet over medium high heat.
- Add the sausage meat to the skillet, breaking it into pieces.
- Cook the meat over medium high heat until it is no longer pink.
- Remove the cooked sausage from the skillet and place it on a plate lined with paper towels.
- If there is a lot of oil left from the sausage, pour some of it off. You can cook the vegetables in the same pan without cleaning it, but you don't want it to be too greasy. If the pan is really dry, you can add a bit of the remaining olive oil.
- Add the garlic and onion, cooking over medium high heat until fragrant but not browned, about four minutes.
- Add the zucchini and tomatoes, cooking until soft.
- Sprinkle with Italian seasoning.
- The zucchini will soften and the tomatoes will begin to burst open. This will take somewhere between 7 and 10 minutes. If the pan gets too dry, you can always add a little oil. You can also lower the hit a bit if you feel like it is getting too brown, too quickly.
- When the veggies are cooked, return the sausage to the pan and heat through.
- Top with the shredded cheese. I added about a cup, but you can add a bit less or a bit more according to your taste.
- When the cheese is melted, your dish is done! Serve over the cooked pasta.
Notes
Tips:
I bought ground sausage meat. If you need to use whole sausages, just cut open the casing and remove the meat. I used the sweet Italian sausage, but you can use mild or hot as well.
You can use prepared Italian seasoning or you can make your own. I have a recipe for the one I use on my focaccia bread recipe.
I like the four Italian shredded cheese, but you can just use Parmesan. I imagine mozzarella might be OK if that is all you have.
You want a tubed shaped pasta to sort of hold all of ingredients in the skillet, but I probably wouldn't use spaghetti or anything like that.
Leave out the sausage for a vegetarian meal!