Hearty Italian Sausage Stew
This Italian sausage stew is a recipe I put together on clean out the freezer week. My sweet mother in law lives 5 hours away and only gets to come visit every few months. It only took about two visits for me to learn that when she leaves, she always leaves gifts behind her that she doesn’t tell me about. I’ll find extra bags of sugar in the pantry, a carton of eggs in the fridge, and a meatloaf in the freezer. The first time it happened, I thought I was going crazy. On one of her visits a few months ago, she must have found some Italian sausage on sale and put it in my freezer. I wasn’t quite sure what to do with all of it, but I threw it together with some tomato sauce and bell peppers to create this delightfully hearty stew.
Hearty Italian Sausage Stew
Author/Source:
Katie @ Onceamonthmom.com
Ingredients:
- 1 pound Italian sausage, browned
- 14.5 ounces Italian stewed tomatoes
- 8 ounces tomato sauce
- 2 cups frozen bell pepper mix
- 0.25 cup chopped onion
- 0.25 cup chicken broth
- 1 teaspoon brown sugar
- 0.5 teaspoon Italian seasoning
- 0.25 teaspoon red pepper flakes
- 0.25 teaspoon salt
- 0.5 teaspoon black pepper
Directions:
In a large saucepan over medium high heat, combine stewed tomatoes, tomato sauce, frozen vegetables, onion, chicken broth, brown sugar, italian seasoning, red pepper flakes, salt, and black pepper. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, cover and allow to simmer for 10 minutes. After simmering, add sausage and stir well. Cook for another 5 minutes, then remove from heat.
Freezing Directions:
Prepare stew as directed above and allow to cool. Place in a gallon freezer bag, label, and freeze. To serve: thaw in fridge. Reheat on stovetop for 15-20 minutes or until warmed through.
Servings: 4
**conversion chart image provided by Erik Spiekermann
This is SO good. I doubled it for a crowd and used 1lb regular sausage and 1 lb Italian sausage. I also increased it to 3 15oz cans of tomato sauce and 3 cans of stewed tomatoes. The crowd loved it!
I just made this last night and to sneak the peppers and onions past the kids, I used my immersion blender. Once I blended it a little it was more the consistency of spaghetti sauce. It was so good and even the kids liked it. The leftovers are in the freezer and next time I will boil up some spaghetti to pour it over. I think this will be my go to spaghetti sauce recipe from now on.
Malisa, what a great idea about using it as spaghetti sauce! I’m glad you enjoyed it.
Wondering if you could make this asachili minus the veggies and add in beans?
Oh you could absolutely add beans to make it more chili like. If you leave out the veggies, it will just be a little more liquidy.