Working Girl Meals: Spicy Sausage with Red Beans and Rice

Let me start my first “working girl meal” post by saying I am not, nor do I claim to be a fancy cook. I am just a girl who loves food and tries her best to create fast, delish meals during the week for me and my hubby. I have very little patience (I’m working on this…hey, at least I am self-aware people) so recipes with few ingredients and fast clean up really appeal to me. You will notice that I take a lot of inspiration from Claire Robinson’s “5 Ingredient Fix”. I love that you don’t feel daunted by a ton of ingredients but everything is super flavorful, which is all that matters in the end. So I’ll share with you one of my go-to meals during the week. Actually, it only has THREE ingredients so…BAM, in your face Claire (just kidding, I love you).

Grocery List:

• 1 package hot Italian sausage  (preferably Roman Brand)
• 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
• 1 package of reduced sodium Zatarain’s red beans and rice

The first thing I do is get the red beans and rice going as it takes 25 minutes to simmer and then 5 minutes to cool. Just follow the steps on the box. After the Zatarain’s is on the stove and simmering away, I heat the olive oil in a large sauté pan. In the meantime, I simply cut the sausage casings off and crumble the sausage meat into the pan. That way they are perfect bite size pieces.  I like the sausage to get a lot of color so I usually let them cook until the red beans and rice are done and I stir them frequently to get even color.  Then you get a great big bowl and combine them both and…voilà! You’re done in 30 minutes!

The reason why my husband and I love this dish so much is that New Orleans is our absolute favorite city. So, this is a version to get those New Orleans flavors in a quick weeknight meal. If you have more time (and patience) than me then you can certainly add ingredients like peppers and onions to the sausage. Also, a little Parmesan cheese sprinkled on top is tasty.  Please don’t judge me for using a boxed ingredient, as I said I am not a fancy cook and more often than not I’m short on time! I know once you try it, you’ll love it. 🙂

Happy Cooking!