Hearty Sausage Casserole

Sausage Casserol

Sausage casserole is on the weekly roster at our house as it is super easy to make. Loaded with noodles, cheese, sausage and a tomato based sauce, this hardy pasta dish is a family favorite. This recipe goes back to my childhood, being a meal my mom would often make for my sister and I. I have tweaked it to my own taste preferences but it is nostalgic none the less. My sister was not the biggest fan of anything with mushrooms in it so she would pick every last one out.

Any time I cook with noodles, I can hear my middle child speaking in her adorable 3 year old voice saying "macaroni noodllleess." The phrase "macaroni noodles" gets thrown around in all kinds of silly contexts at our house. Half the time just stated randomly as a little inside family joke. This is a meal I often end up taking to work as it tastes great as a leftover meal. Several of my co-workers have asked me over the years for the recipe after drooling over my dish. It smells, looks, and tastes good, so why wouldn't you want to try it.

Isn't it amazing how every food can have a memory attached to it? This is one of the many reasons why I wanted to start a food blog and share my recipes with the world. I hope others can receive the same amount of joy as I do when making and sharing food with others.

TIPS AND TRICKS:

- Take the sausage out of the casing. I don't know about you but I don't enjoy eating mystery casings. Having said that, the insides of sausages are delicious and packed full of flavor. For this recipe if you remove the meat from the casing, this will create more of a ground beef consistency and will allow all the flavors to seep into the sauce. I prefer to use a mild Italian sausage mainly because my kids don't love too much "spiciness." I can literally hear them saying "its too spicy." This is purely a preference decision, so choose whichever spice level you like.

- If you know you are going to have leftovers, scoop out your leftover portions before the noodles are fully cooked, that way when you go to warm it up again they don't get over cooked. Nobody likes a mushy noodle.

-The classic way of making this recipe is with canned diced tomato's. We have all been there were you have almost everything to make a dish but your short a can or two. You can substitute one out of the 2 cans of diced tomato's for a can of spaghetti sauce. This happened to me the other night and it tasted just as delicious. You can also substitute whatever veggies you prefer but I will be posting my go to recipe.

WHAT YOU WILL NEED:

large pot with lid, measuring cups and spoons, garlic mincer, cutting board and knife

Sausage Casserole

Ingredients:

1 3/4 Cup elbow macaroni noodles

2 Cans diced tomato's including liquid

1 Can of sliced mushrooms

1 Large green pepper, diced

2 Medium size onions, diced

6 Cloves of fresh garlic minced

2 Tbsp dry parsley flakes

2 Tbsp dry basil flakes

salt and pepper to taste

2 Cups or so medium cheddar cheese

4 De - cased Italian sausages

Directions:

- Using your large pot turn onto medium high heat and sauté your de-cased sausages. sprinkle meat with a bit of salt and pepper.

- Once cooked remove from pot and set aside. Now add your onions and mushrooms and cook until lightly browned. Add minced garlic and allow to cook a min or too.

- Return cooked sausage back to the pot and add in chopped peppers, seasonings and canned tomato's.

- Simmer for 20 to 30min with the lid on and check flavoring. add additional seasoning's as desired.

- Add macaroni (elbow) noodles, and continue to simmer on low heat with the lid on.

- Once the noodles are cooked, turn off the heat and add in you shredded cheese.

- Serve it up hot and enjoy

Sausage Casserol

Whether it's Sweet or Savoury, let it be made with love.