Italian Sausage Skillet

Italian Sausage Skillet served over Pasta

(updated below with alternate version - with potatoes instead of pasta)

Ingredients

1 Tablespoon EVOO (extra virgin olive oil),

1 Package Sweet Italian Sausage (5 links)

1 Red Onion – sliced

½ Red Bell Pepper – diced

2 Cloves Garlic – minced

1 Yellow Squash – sliced

1/3 Cup Sun Dried Tomatoes (in olive oil)

1 teaspoon Italian Seasoning (I used Flavor God Italian Zest)

Salt & Pepper

Red Pepper Flakes (I used two shakes - very scientific, I know)

4 Scallion Onions, sliced thin (for garnish)

Cooked pasta tossed with a little EVOO, garlic salt and lemon pepper. Any kind of hardy noodle works best like penne or wide noodles. 

Instructions

Heat skillet and add olive oil.  Cut sausage into circles about an inch thick.  Sauté until browned on all sides.  Add ¼ cup water so sausage won’t stick and burn while cooking.  In the meantime slice and dice veggies, stirring sausage occasionally until cooked.  Remove sausage from skillet and add onion and red pepper. Sauté until soft.  Add garlic and stir.  Add squash, sun dried tomatoes and seasonings.  Add sausage back to pan and continue cooking until everything is done.  Serve over pasta and garnish with scallions.

Cooking time was approximately 30 minutes.

Patti's Notes: As soon as I got the sausage in the pan, I put on the water to boil for the pasta.  I find the best way to cut raw sausage is with a kitchen scissors.  Some recipes suggest cooking the sausage whole and cutting after.  I prefer to cut it first so it gets crispy edges all around.  You can change up the veggies to whatever you like.  Some called for cherry tomatoes or canned diced tomatoes but Paul doesn’t like tomatoes so I subbed the sun dried version because they don’t taste like tomatoes after they are cooked into a recipe (in my opinion).  If you mix up the veggies, add the ones that take longer to cook, followed by the ones that cook quick. Thus the onions and peppers before the squash.

Source ~ none really to give credit to.  I saw a picture of a sausage skillet scrolling on Facebook advertising a Mediterranean Diet Cookbook.  Several comments said they had the cookbook and that recipe wasn’t in it.  I image searched the photo and found a few recipes that looked similar. I couldn't find one I wanted to follow exactly so I made it up as I went along. 

Paul said it was delicious and went back for seconds. 

Two oven mitts up for this one! 

********************UPDATE********************

I decided to try this again with potatoes instead of pasta.

Pretty much the same instructions as above, however I chopped four small red potatoes and added them to the pan with the onions.  When I was shopping they didn't have yellow squash so I used zucchini instead.  I added a little more of the Italian seasoning because I thought the potatoes needed it (vs the seasoned pasta).  

Equally as delicious!