Italian Sausage and Peppers

In celebration of Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino (best known for his role in a little reality show called Jersey Shore) being released from federal prison last week, I give you a blog post on Italian Sausage and Peppers, or Peppas, as Sitch would say.

Jersey Shore was one of my favorite shows when it was in it’s prime, and I, no joke, literally developed my Sausage and Peppers recipe after watching The Situation make the dish for Sunday dinner on one of the first episodes.

Now, it’s not like I used The Situation’s recipe, or anything.  From what I remember, he mixed everything together in a glass dish and cooked it in the oven, whereas mine is more of a skillet on the stove kind of meal.

See a clip of Sunday dinner (with the sausage and peppers cooked in the oven, just like I remembered!) here.

Just for sh*ts and giggles, see my all time favorite, but completely unrelated, Jersey Shore clip, here. “Love you, bye!”

And now back to the recipe…

To start, I slice the peppers and onion and chop the garlic.  Then, I cut the sausage into bite sized pieces.

Even though I cook the sausage first, I like to keep things simple and only use one knife, (one knife, one skillet, fuhgeddaboudit!) which means that the peppers are cut first to avoid any contamination from the raw meat.

After the slicing, chopping and cutting are done, I brown both sides of the sausage pieces that I’ve cut, but I remove the sausage from the skillet before it is fully cooked.  Then I saute the peppers before steaming them in a bath of diced tomatoes and Italian seasonings.

After the peppers have softened, I add the onions, garlic and sausage back to skillet, cover and cook until the onion are soft and the sausage is cooked through.

Because you get a nice liquid from the diced tomatoes, I like to serve the sausage and peppers over either egg noodles or, if you want to go low carb, cauliflower rice.  I actually prefer the cauliflower rice because it really soaks up the flavor from the tomatoes.

Add some Parmesan cheese at the end for some cheesy goodness.

Italian Sausage and Peppers

A hearty one skillet dinner that is healthy and flavorful. Perfect for a gym, tan, laundry day. Yeah, buddy!

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Ingredients

  

• 1 pound sweet Italian turkey sausage sliced into quarter inch slices (about 5 slices per sausage link)
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 6 bell peppers I use 3 green and 1 each red, yellow and orange, sliced
• 2 cans diced tomatoes
• 1 teaspoon dried basil
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1 teaspoon dried parsley
• 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes optional
• 1 onion sliced
• 3 cloves of garlic chopped

Instructions

 

• Heat large, deep skillet over medium heat. Cook sausage for about 5 minutes, until brown. Flip and brown on the other side. Remove from skillet.
• Add olive oil to pan and saute bell peppers for about 5 minutes. Add diced tomatoes , basil, oregano, parsley and red pepper flakes. Cover skillet with lid for 15 minutes and reduce heat to low. Stir occasionally.
• Add onion, garlic and sausage back to skillet. Cover and cook for another 10-15 minutes until onions are soft and sausage is cooked through.
• Serve with cauliflower rice or egg noodles.