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If you have leftover rice, this sausage and peppers one-skillet dinner may be the perfect answer for your dinner–in 15 minutes!
Ever wonder what to do with that big tub of leftover white rice from Chinese take-out? Did you over-estimate servings and have your own rice leftover? Here’s a solution and a tasty one-skillet dinner to boot!
The truth is, I love dinners such as this. First, it cooks all in one pan so there’s little clean up involved. Secondly, it takes a rather bland ingredient and makes it highly tasty.
In this, I used fully cooked Italian chicken sausage. My store had these chicken sausages on sale last week and I picked up some. I rather like them–even prefer them somewhat over their pork cousins–they are far less fatty and the meat inside is ground finer. It’s not that I’m on a health kick all of a sudden. I just really LIKE chicken sausage!
If you can’t find fully cooked chicken sausage, then by all means use the pork Italian sausage. Steaming the sausage for 10 minutes will cook them enough (and remove a lot of fat too) so they can be sliced, then the browning will finish them off. Bulk sausage browned and drained works too.
I always have peppers in my freezer because I buy them when a sale is on and what I don’t use immediately gets diced and put in the freezer for future use. Peppers freeze very well.
Since I absolutely loved this smoked sausage and cheesy rice, I tried to give it a little Italian flair with different seasonings and cheeses.
This is very quick and easy. Because the sausage is already cooked, all you have to do is brown it and saute some veggies. I had a lot of button mushrooms so I used those–they can be left out if you don’t do mushrooms. Bigger mushrooms are fine–just slice them first. Mix in the rice, add the cheese and voilà you are ready to eat.
I used Fontina cheese because I had leftover from making my Gourmet 3-Cheese Mac & Cheese, but you can substitute cheddar if you like.
Sausage and Peppers with Cheesy Rice
Ingredients
- 1 lb fully cooked chicken sausage sliced in 1/4-inch slices
- 1 cup sliced mushrooms
- 2 cups bell peppers I mixed 3 colors
- 1/4 cup chopped onion
- 1 clove garlic minced
- 1 cup chicken stock
- 2 cups cooked rice* leftover rice is perfect
- 1 cup shredded fontina cheddar is OK too
- 1/4 cup shredded asiago cheese
- 1 tsp salt
- 2 tbsp olive oil
Instructions
- Heat olive oil over medium heat in a large deep skillet (a chef pan is perfect)
- Add the sliced sausage, mushrooms, bell peppers, onion and garlic.
- Sauce until sausage begins to brown.
- Add the cooked rice and the stock; stir well.
- Cover and cook for 10 minutes.
- Add the cheeses and the salt (if needed). Stir until cheese is melted.
Notes
Nutrition
Liz says
Thank you Judith.
Judith Hanneman says
Have a great Super Sunday Liz!
Katherine Kelley says
Judith, this dish is one of the best I’ve made in the past year! My husband loved it so much that here I am making it for tonight’s supper just 2 weeks after my first try. I used a mix of hot and sweet Italian sausages, a little Italian herb seasoning blend, a mix of green, red, and yellow peppers, and combined mild cheddar with freshly grated Parmesan for the cheeses. The combination of flavors, colors, and textures turned out to be wonderful!
Judith Hanneman says
I’m so happy to hear this!! You know this was one of those dinners where I couldn’t wait until the next day to eat the leftovers! In fact, it was all I could think of the rest of the evening.