Italian Sausage Beans and Greens | Food Wishes

[00:00] Hello, this is Chef John from foodwishes.com foodwishes.com with Italian sausage, beans, and greens. That's right. Beans and greens is my favorite Italian recipe that does not

[00:13] And what I'm about to share is my favorite version of beans and greens. of my favorites. It's one of my favorite favorites. And to get started, we'll

[00:25] transfer a couple mild Italian sausages into a pan set over medium-high heat, in which we've drizzled just a touch of olive And before these start cooking, we're going to do something we almost never

[00:37] which is take a knife and give these the old poke-a-poke, which is going to allow some of the fat and juices to leak out into the pan, ingredients we cook in this pan even more flavorful.

[00:50] And what we'll do is cook these sausage for about 5 or 6 minutes per side, or until we get some nice browning on the surface, as well as our sausage is going to be pretty much cooked through. And by the way, once these get sizzling,

[01:02] medium if you want, so the pan doesn't And what we'll do once those sausage are cooked on both sides is remove them to a plate, where we will allow them to cool to room temp before we pop them in the

[01:15] And then we'll go ahead and transfer a diced onion into a now very flavorful pan, along with a nice big pinch of salt, and over medium-high heat, we will cook these stirring until not only do they start to turn translucent, but

[01:30] until they start to take on some color and turn a little bit golden brown, or even dark brown in some spots. And yes, some of the color the onions sausage juices caramelized down to the bottom of the pan

[01:44] deglazed, which again is one of the reasons we But anyway, once our onions are looking a little something like this, we will go ahead and season this up with some freshly ground black pepper,

[01:57] a nice big pinch of red chili flakes, some dried oregano, garlic, and we will stir all this together, and oil, which we almost always do.

[02:11] to this dish, but the reason we don't add a lot at the beginning is cuz you're come out of the sausage, which for me wasn't a lot, so I went ahead and drizzled some in.

[02:24] for about 30 seconds to a minute. And once that's been accomplished, we chicken broth, and we'll want to raise our heat to high, since we want this to come up to a boil,

[02:37] and we'll give that a quick stir, just for fun mostly. bubbling enthusiastically, we will transfer in two cans of beans, which I've drained but not rinsed. And I'm using great northern beans, but

[02:51] literally any bean you like will work, so you decide. Draymond Greens of which beans go with the greens. those in, we'll reduce our heat to medium-high,

[03:06] and we will let this cook and simmer and reduce for about 15 minutes, which is the perfect amount of time to prep our greens and slice our sausage. And while any braising green will work, for me a nice big head of escarole is

[03:19] And what we'll do is trim a little bit off the bottom, and then we'll start slicing every half inch or so. And if you have a little bit of the core at the bottom, that's fine. We'll just cut that in a couple pieces.

[03:32] have been cut in a nice thick ribbons is sort of turn a handful at a time and so that we get some nice spoonable size pieces. chopping until your other hand's out of the way,

[03:47] unless of course you want a trip to the ER to be part of your day. shown, we'll go ahead and transfer that into a bowl, nice fresh cold water, and then drain it

[04:01] and then we'll simply let it sit in our strainer until it's ready to use. At which point we can go ahead and grab our sausage from earlier and proceed to slice that up, which I'm going to do in about quarter-inch slices,

[04:14] which I think is ideal. But again, you cut those how you want. Although, when you do decide on a size, try to stick with it, so the pieces are And once those have been cut, we'll go ahead and transfer those into our brothy

[04:28] which as you know has been cooking for about 15 minutes now. reduced down a bit. And what we'll do is stir that sausage in and reduce our heat to medium, and we will let that simmer, stirring

[04:41] occasionally, for about 10 minutes. this, you can always smash a few of the beans against the bottom of the pan, which is going to produce a little thicker and a little creamier texture.

[04:54] So, personally, I do like to bash up a bunch of the beans. But either way, once that's cooked for about 10 minutes, we will raise our heat back up to high to bring this up to a more enthusiastic simmer,

[05:06] greens, and we'll take some tongs and settle those down. And once that escarole has slumped and softened, we will simply cook this stirring for a few minutes until we

[05:18] decide it's ready. And the beautiful thing about escarole is you don't even have to cook it. Okay, it really is delicious eaten raw, so if you only want to cook this for a minute or two, it's going to be great.

[05:31] more on the tender side, then I'd probably cook this for more like 5 to 7 And if you've never made this before, simply keep tasting until you're happy And once we feel like we're getting close and we're happy with the texture,

[05:46] we can reduce our heat to medium-low. Oh, and speaking of tasting, we definitely need to check for salt, since depending on how salty your sausage was and your chicken broth was, you may not need any, or like me, you might decide

[05:59] it needs a nice big pinch. So, I went ahead and stirred that in, you and your greens are cooked to the perfect doneness, we will turn off the heat and serve that up. And in real life, just go ahead and

[06:12] Okay, I have to take a spoon and tease some of the sausage up to the surface, since as you well know, I have to take some contractually obligated pictures. But whether you decide to expose your sausage or not, we will garnish with

[06:26] some freshly chopped Italian parsley, as well as some freshly grated lemon zest, which I really do think is key here. chili flakes before we finish up with a nice drizzle

[06:39] of extra virgin olive oil. And that's it. Our Italian sausage, beans, and greens is ready to enjoy. And I'm going to show you how to do that properly in a few moments, but at this point I had to grab a spoon and dig in,

[06:52] cuz it just looked and smelled so good. And that, my friends, to me is the epitome of simple rustic Italian comfort food. Right, this is just so satisfying and delicious. That savory sausage and

[07:05] earthy beans and that bittersweet escarole, which again is just the perfect choice for this. And as fantastic as that was eaten right you how I really think you should eat this, which is in a bowl next to some

[07:19] fresh lemon and some beautifully toasted bread. flakes and maybe another touch of olive oil, I think we should finish with a top. And please, use the real stuff,

[07:33] Parmigiano-Reggiano. And what we'll do is squeeze in a little bit of fresh lemon, which really brightens things up and amplifies all And then we'll grab a piece of toast and a spoon, and we'll get in there, and

[07:46] we'll get in there deep. And as good as those bites in the pan were, the addition of that fresh lemon juice and that little bit of Parmesan take this up to a whole other level. And if there's a better thing to eat on a

[07:58] cold, wet, windy winter day, I do not know what it is, because this really is which is why no matter what beans you use, or which greens you use, or whether

[08:10] it's sunny and beautiful, or cold and nasty, I really do hope you give this a try soon. So, please follow the links below for the ingredient amounts, a printable written recipe, and much more info as

[08:22] usual. And as always, enjoy. [Music]