Cheese

One-Pot Lamb Sausage and Kale Orzo

4/29/2019 08:07:00 AM

A comforting autumnal recipe for you today - one-pot lamb sausage and kale orzo! Lamb sausage, kale, and orzo pasta are all cooked together in the one pot, with a handful of grated mozzarella stirred through at the end for extra creamy deliciousness. This comforting dish is packed full of flavour and couldn't be easier - it takes just thirty minutes from start to finish. A fantastic weeknight meal!

Lamb Sausage and Kale Orzo

If you follow me on Instagram, you'll know that I recently came back from a wonderful holiday in sunny Malaysia. It was warm and sunny, and we ate SO much - it was the best! While we were away, daylight savings ended, and Autumn seems to have kicked in properly, so in addition to the usual post-holiday blues, I'm also dealing with the colder weather and early darkness. Blah! I am craving comfort food to the max! This one-pot orzo definitely fits the bill.

Back when I made my Chicken Dinner Meal Prep, I had a huge bunch of gorgeous organic cavolo nero (Tuscan kale) leftover, and I spent most of the following week devising ways to use it up. I'm thrilled to say that this one-pot lamb sausage and kale orzo was one of the results.

I thought that the robust, verdantly green kale would go well with a fennel-studded spicy Italian sausage, so I searched for recipes combining the two ingredients, and found a delicious-looking recipe for One-Pot Orzo with Italian Sausage and Kale on Yay! for Food. At first I was planning to make it exactly as per the recipe just for my dinner (i.e. and not blog it), but when I got to the supermarket I came across these wonderful smelling Greek lamb sausages and I had to have them! (I suppose you could use whatever sausages take your fancy, but I did love the combo of lamb sausages and kale). I also scaled down the recipe to make two servings rather than six and made some other minor adjustments to suit my taste. The full, adapted recipe is below!

So, you start by squeezing the sausage meat from the casing, and sautéing it in a pan with onions, garlic and chilli flakes.

Sautéing the sausage

Then you add the kale and let it wilt down for a bit, before adding orzo pasta.

Orzoooooo

I totally love orzo pasta and need no excuse to cook with it. Nigella's pasta risotto with peas and pancetta from Nigellissima and her meatballs with orzo from At My Table are both favourites of mine. (I'm fairly sure orzo and risoni are the same thing, by the way - pasta in the shape of rice). In this recipe, you stir the orzo to cover it in all the delicious flavourful oils, then pour stock over...

Ready to simmer

...clamp on a lid and let it simmer gently until the stock is absorbed and the orzo is cooked through. Super easy! The final flourish is a handful of grated mozzarella stirred through to get all melty and creamy. (I've made this dish a couple of times now, and always used mozzarella, but as I type this post, I think that feta might be a nice alternative, especially with a lamb sausage).

One-Pot Lamb Sausage & Kale Orzo

I've used a cast iron pan for these photos, but I'd actually suggest using a non-stick frying pan, as some of the little orzo grains caught on the bottom of the pan and were difficult to scoop out.

I absolutely loved this dish and have already made it more than once! I love the punchy flavours, and how it's really comforting without feeling heavy or overindulgent. Perrrrrfect for the cooler Autumn nights!

I (obviously) love cooking and baking, but I must admit that I can find regular weeknight cooking to be a bit of a challenge. I'm happy to spend ages in the kitchen on a complicated baking project or putting together an elaborate dinner party, but the actual grind of the day-in-day-out regular cooking can sometimes be overwhelming. For me, it's usually not the actual cooking, or even the shopping, that is the difficult part, it's just making the decision! I'm always thrilled when I can add a new simple weeknight dish to the repertoire!

Enjoy!

One-Pot Lamb Sausage and Kale Orzo
Adapted from Yay! for Food

Ingredients
1 tbsp olive oil
2 Greek lamb sausages (approx. 180g in total)
1/2 small onion, finely chopped
1 garlic clove, crushed
1/4 teaspoon chilli flakes
6 leaves cavolo nero or approx. 2 cups loosely packed chopped kale leaves
2/3 cup orzo pasta
1 cup chicken stock
1/4 cup grated mozzarella
Grated parmesan, salt & pepper

Method
Heat the olive oil in a large pan that comes with a tight fitting lid over a medium heat. Squeeze the sausage meat out of the skins and place in the hot pan. Cook, stirring, and breaking up the meat until the meat has started to brown and is crumbly.
Add the onion, garlic, and chilli flakes and season with salt and pepper. Cook for approx. 5 minutes or until beginning to soften.
Wash the cavolo nero and remove any hard stems. Finely slice the leaves and add to the pan. Stir to combine and cook until wilted. Add the orzo and stir combine.
Pour over the stock (you may need to add a little extra depending on the dimensions of your pan - you want it to just cover the ingredients in the pan). Bring to the boil, then turn down to a simmer and cover with the lid. Allow to cook for 12-15 minutes or until the orzo is tender and the liquid is absorbed. Remove from the heat
Add the mozzarella and stir through. Taste and adjust seasoning as you like with salt, pepper, grated Parmesan and chilli flakes.
Serves 2-3

Have you made this recipe? Leave a comment below! Tag me on Instagram @sarahcooksblog and hashtag #sarahcooksblog

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1 comments

  1. Made this tonight and it was yummy! :)

    Couldn't find Greek sausages at the Queen Vic markets for some reasons so I used English pork with a bit of coriander and fennel seed.

    Next time I might try it with lamb mince, sumac and harissa (sort of Ottolenghi-esque :)

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