There is nothing that I love more than a simple, one pot meal. As much as I love cooking, dishes and cleaning up during/after can be off-putting. If you have read any of my other recipes, you know that I use as little dishes as possible. I don’t need to mix everything together in separate bowls and THEN combine them into one big bowl in the end. We add everything to the big bowl and mix. It’s all ending up together in the end, right?!
When people say that it is harder to eat healthy during the holiday season, I understand, but my downfall is the summer. Day drinking, going to the beach with your friends, having a boat day, etc. Summer activities leave me grabbing drinks and all that fun BBQ food! Lately, I have felt a little sluggish and I know it’s because all of this unhealthy eating has caught up with me. When I decided to cook dinner tonight, I knew I needed to include as many vegetables as possible. When I mean eat healthy, it isn’t necessarily for aesthetics…it’s for the nutrients. My body was screaming, “Ummm…hello! What are you doing to me??”
That being said, I wanted to make this recipe vegetable heavy. It’s still fun with the sausage and pasta but there is so many different colorful, yummy veggies, that it has balance.
For this recipe, I started with heating olive oil in a larger frying pan and adding minced garlic. I like to let this sizzle together for a couple minutes.
While that is sizzling, diced up your yellow onion and add to the pan. I like to use a large amount of olive oil for this process because it allows the garlic flavors to come through and the yellow onion to soften.
While that is simmering and cooking together, dice up each of the 3 bell peppers. If you don’t have 3 different color bell peppers, that’s fine, just add what you do have. I love the colors that each pepper brings to the pan, but for taste, it won’t matter if you use 3 red, etc. instead.
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Let this simmer and cook for 5 minutes. This is a fast pace recipe- I like to do the dicing and chopping as I go and that allows me to not get antsy and give each ingredient less time to cook. So during the time the veggies are cooking, I chopped up the polish sausage (about 1/2″ thick). I love this stuff…since it is already cooked, I tend to lose a few of the pieces to my snacking.
If you are someone who likes to prep and dice everything before beginning to cook, that will work too. Everyone’s mind works differently- mine just needs a little bit of chaos to function at it’s peak.
After you sautéed all the vegetables together for 5 minutes and chopped the sausage, add these to the pan as well.
I toss and let this mixture cook together for another 5 minutes as well. Not sure if you can guess this, but I will be chopping up the next ingredient during this…lol. That ingredient is: cherry tomatoes. I slice these in half. The reason that I do not add these when I add the rest of the vegetables is because tomatoes take a lot less time to get to the desired texture. They are naturally softer and juicier vegetables, that I like to add them closer to the end.
Because the tomatoes do not need much time to cook, once they are added, add the chicken broth. This is the time in the recipe where the size of the pot that you chose will come to the test. Now, this will look like you are making a soup, but rest assured, it will not be in the end.
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Turn up your heat to high and allow the broth to come to a boil. This is when you will add your pasta. I recommend continuing to mix every so often to make sure all of the noodles are fully cooked. With so many ingredients in the pan, the noodles may float to top and not get fully cooked. Continuing to mix every so often allows this not to happen.
Now that all the brother is soaked up, add all of your spices: Italian Seasoning, Salt, and Pepper. Luckily, between the garlic, the broth, and all of the veggies, a lot of flavor is present without having to add too many spices.
Add 95% of the parmesan cheese, mix and cover for 10-15 more minutes. I like to save a little bit of the cheese to serve melted on top. That and adding some parsley makes it all come together with beautiful presentation.
One Pot Pasta: Sausage and Veggies
Ingredients
- 8 oz Rigatoni (dry) or other noodle of choice
- 14 oz Polska Kielbasa
- 4 oz Grape Tomatoes (halved)
- 1 Green Bell Pepper
- 1 Yellow Bell Pepper
- 1 Orange Bell Pepper
- 1/2 Yellow Onion (diced)
- 32 oz Chicken Broth
- 8 oz Shredded Parmesan Cheese
- 1 tsp Minced Garlic
- 1 tbsp Olive Oil
- 1 tsp Italian Seasoning
- Salt and Pepper to Taste
- Parsley for Garnish
Instructions
- Add olive oil to pan and turn on medium heat
- Add minced garlic and let simmer for 1-2 minutes
- Add diced yellow onion
- While onion and garlic are simmering, cut up all 3 color's of bell peppers
- Add the diced bell peppers to the pan
- Let simmer and cook for about 5 minutes
- In the meantime, cut up the polish sausage in 1/2" thick sections
- Add sausage to pan
- Cut grape tomatoes in half and add to pan
- Let cook for 5 minutes
- Add chicken broth directly to pan
- Turn up heat to allow broth to boil and add pasta
- Continue to mix until noodles are cooked (about 10 minutes)
- Add Italian Seasoning, Salt and Pepper
- Add parmesan cheese to pan and stir
- Let cook for 10-15 more minutes
- If going for aesthetics, add a little cheese on top, cover and let the cheese melt
- Garnish with chopped up parsley
- Serve
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