Sausage & Pearl Wheat
One Pot Italian Sausage and Pearl Wheat Dinner
One pot meals are quick and easy and often come together as a comfort food dish. That’s exactly what this meal is. It came together in just over a half an hour. There wasn’t much to the prep work and once its in the pot all you have to do is stir it a couple of times while its cooking. Served along side a fresh loaf of french bread you can’t go wrong. To lighten up the meal a little, consider serving with a nice fresh side salad.
I love finding different ways to incorporate nutrition into our daily diets. We are a starch family so we love our rice, pasta and potatoes, but I love discovering other optional choices as well. Wheat berries are whole, unprocessed wheat kernels in their most natural form. They are extremely nutritious offering all the nutrients of a whole grain as they contain the germ, endosperm and bran. With their exceptional nutrient content and crunchy texture they are a tasty food choice. I have to admit I had never really noticed Pearl Wheat in the store until the other day. I often cook with pearl rice, but Pearl Wheat was new to me. I wasn’t sure how I was going to use it, but I knew I had to get a bag and I’d come up with something. I had a recipe idea in my head from another dish I make with pearl barley and farmer sausage thinking I could substitute the pearl wheat in place of the barley. When I was at the store a couple of days later, I picked up a package of mild Italian sausage knowing I could use it to switch out the farmer sausage in the recipe.
To me, Italian sausage automatically goes great with tomatoes, so adding them to this dish was kind of a no-brainer. I wanted to make sure the rest of the ingredients in the recipe were strong enough to go head-to-head with the Italian sausage, but not too strong that it would over take it. The spice blends I selected were perfect. Our Everything BUT Salt and Pepper Seasoning is very herbal in makeup so it provided some soft notes of flavour that blended well with the sausage. Since we were using raw pearl wheat in this recipe, the Chicken Bouillon ensured there was enough flavour in the liquid so the pearl wheat would pick it up while it was cooking. I was very pleased with the results. We really enjoyed the flavours and the slight chewiness of the pearl wheat even though it was fully cooked. It was perfect for this dish.
The Tasty Kitchen Creations products that are mentioned in this post are available for sale on our shopping page. We hope you enjoy this recipe as much as we do.
INGREDIENTS
1 lb mild Italian Sausage
1 medium onion (diced)
1 garlic clove (minced)
1 TBSP Olive Oil
1 cup Pearl Wheat
2 TBSP TKC Chicken Bouillon
2 tsp TKC Everything BUT Salt & Pepper Seasoning
2 cups water
1 can diced tomatoes
Onion greens, chopped for garnish
INSTRUCTIONS
Remove the casing from Italian sausage and break the meat up.
Heat olive oil in a saucepan. Saute diced onions for 3 – 4 minutes until softened.
Add garlic and continue to cook for 1 more minute.
Add the broken up sausage meat to onions and garlic. Continue to saute until meat has cooked and browned.
Add the pearl wheat, saute for another 2 minutes to roast the grain slightly. This will enhance the nutty flavour of the grain.
Stir in the Chicken Bouillon powder and the Everything BUT Salt & Pepper Seasoning.
Add the canned tomatoes and water. Bring to a simmer.
Reduce heat to low and cover with a lid.
Allow to cook for 20 – 30 minutes until pearl wheat is cooked. Wheat will have a slight crunch texture left in it.
Garnish with green onions.
