Earlier this week I had a total recipe fail and I was a bit discouraged since I haven’t had much time in the kitchen lately, but then I took a step back and realized I needed to get back to my roots. Simple recipes, with simple ingredients, and lots of flavor. So I decided to take advantage of a sale on Italian sausage (one of my favorite “short cut” ingredients) and whip up this incredibly filling Italian Sausage and White Bean Skillet.
Automatic Seasoning with Sausage
One of the reasons I love working with Italian sausage is because it’s packed with all the herbs and spices that you would normally add one by one to a recipe. So when I start a dish with Italian sausage, I rarely have to season it with anything later. The sausage does all the work for me. Yay!
To retain all the flavor from the sausage, I did not drain the fat from the skillet, but rather used it as a sort of sauce or dressing to coat the white beans and spinach with flavor. I added some freshly cracked pepper and that’s it. I used hot Italian sausage because that’s what was on sale, but you can use mild or sweet varieties as well.
How to Serve Italian Sausage and White Bean Skillet
This Italian sausage and White Bean Skillet is so extremely versatile that I wanted to give you a few variations. I decided to go with a “one skillet” and low-er carb version because those recipes seem to be quite popular lately, but you can lower the cost and stretch this meal out by replacing some of the sausage, beans, or spinach with 8oz. of cooked pasta, preferably orecchiette, which is a flat, disk-like shape. If you can’t find spinach for a low price like I did (thank you, Aldi!!), you can cut the amount of spinach in half and still have a great dish, or use frozen chopped spinach.
Want more Italian Sausage recipes? Check out our Italian Sausage Recipe Archives!
Italian Sausage and White Bean Skillet
Servings 4 about 1.5 cups eachIngredients
- 1 lb. Italian sausage (hot, mild, or sweet) ($3.49)
- 1 Tbsp olive oil ($0.13)
- 2 15oz. cans cannellini beans* ($1.10)
- 8 oz. spinach ($1.49)
- Freshly cracked black pepper ($0.05)
Instructions
- Remove the casing from the sausage and add the sausage to a large deep skillet, or wide bottomed soup pot, along with the olive oil. Sauté the sausage over medium heat, breaking it into pieces as you go, until the sausage is cooked through, brown, and crispy on the edges (about 10 minutes).
- While the sausage is cooking, rinse and drain the cannellini beans. Once the sausage is brown and crispy, add the beans and some freshly cracked pepper to the skillet. Gently stir the beans into the sausage to coat them in the fat, and allow them to heat through.
- As the beans are heating through, roughly chop the spinach. Add the spinach to the skillet or pot in batches, gently stirring it into the sausage and beans until it wilts down. Once the spinach is mostly wilted, turn the heat off. Taste the mixture and add salt if needed (this will depend on the salt content of your sausage and beans). Serve hot.
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Equipment
Notes
Nutrition
Have you tried this recipe?Mention @budgetbytes or tag #budgetbytes on Instagram!How to Make Sausage and White Bean Skillet – Step by Step Photos
This recipe started with this awesome sale on Italian sausage. This whole package, which is actually slightly larger than 1 lb. was only $3.49. This recipe is very flexible and forgiving, so you can use a little less, a little more, or exactly 1 lb. Italian sausage, and it can be hot, mild, or sweet.
Remove the casing from the sausage and then add the sausage to a large deep skillet, or a wide-bottomed pot with 1 Tbsp olive oil. Sauté the sausage over medium heat, breaking it into pieces as it cooks, until the sausage pieces are brown and crispy. Don’t stop when it’s simply cooked through, keep going until the moisture evaporates and the edges start to sizzle in the oil and turn brown.
While the sausage is cooking, rinse and drain two 15oz. cans of cannellini beans. Cannellini beans are better than navy beans or great northern beans because they are larger, hold up better, and have a great creamy flavor. The smaller beans that tend to break down are better suited for soups and things where you’ll want them to break down and help thicken the mixture.
Once the sausage is crispy, add the drained beans and gently stir to combine. Add some freshly cracked pepper and allow the beans to heat through with the sausage.
I’m lucky enough to be able to buy this 8oz. bag of fresh spinach for $1.49, but if you can’t get a deal like this you can either reduce the spinach by half, or use frozen spinach in its place. The only downside to using the frozen spinach is that the texture and appearance will not be as good. Instead of being tender, the frozen spinach will be a bit more stringy. Actually frozen broccoli florets (chopped into small pieces) would also be pretty awesome with this.
Roughly chop the spinach and add it to the skillet in batches, stirring it just until it wilts down, and then adding the next batch.
Once all the spinach has been added and it is mostly wilted (you want it to still have a little body, not totally cooked down), give everything a taste and add salt or pepper if needed. My skillet was so extremely flavorful, even without adding anything else. It’s amazing! The amount of seasoning needed at the end will likely depend on the salt and spice content of your sausage and beans, so it may vary from brand to brand.
Dinner doesn’t get easier than this. :)
Great flavor, added grated Parm and some Beef broth, fresh garlic. But it needs something, maybe use it like a Shepherd’s Pie with a topping of some kind, or as a baked casserole.
Really enjoyed it, but it was kind of ho-hum on the plate. I can eat a ton of it, but it’s just a tick shy of being a meal, more like a side dish.
Maybe tossed with some Penne or Bowties.
I’m just feeling like something is missing. Again, great flavor, loved the whole mix of the the flavors!
I’ve made this a few times now. We substituted red kidney beans the other day. It was still amazing!
Made this for a family Christmas pot luck using a dutch over, I also tripled the recipe. Added in some kale and also some parmesan cheese towards the end. After it was all done I layered some more cheese on top and cracked fresh pepper over it. Put on the lid on, removed from heat, let it rest while I packed up the car. When I arrived (15 mins later) to the party the cheese had formed a wonderful stringy layer, so each serving had some. My family loved the recipe and couldn’t believe how simple it was to make. This will be a staple for the coming years.
Hi Beth, can I make this ahead and freeze it? I’m thinking casserole dish for company over the holidays. I’ve made this many times and we all love it. Very easy and very tasty!
Hmmm, I’m not sure how this one would freeze. My only concern is that it might get kind of dry. You might try just freezing one serving to test it out and then go from there.
This was super easy and super tasty! I did follow the suggestion of adding garlic, cooking it in with the sausage.
This is likened to a Southern girls’ beans and ham hock flavor. I was pleasantly surprised at how the 3 simple ingredients duplicated that comfort food taste of a pot of beans and pork cooked all day.
I made this for my husband and I, who is a picky eater that never willingly chooses to eat spinach or beans. It was a hit! Per another reviewer’s recommendation, I added one cup of chicken broth and 2.5oz of heavy cream after I added the beans, and 1oz of parmesan at the end of cooking. I already had these additions in my kitchen, but the recipe would still be delicious without. The end result was slightly thicker and a little creamier, perfect with thick crusty bread the first night and over rotini as leftovers. Thank you for such a quick and easy recipe!
So easy. So quick. So flavorful. Can I have another 5 versions of this to rotate every week (very serious question)? I adored this recipe. Also, great leftovers to pack for work! (That’s if you have leftovers… had to double the recipe to have any survive.)
May I add a few suggestions? A few cloves of minced garlic sauteed with the sausage really amps up the flavor. Some chicken broth (maybe 1/2 cup or so) helps the texture. And a few TBSP of grated Parmesan or Romano at the end melts and turns the broth and fat into a delicious creamy sauce. Also, sometimes I use a more bitter green like kale or broccoli rabe. The slight bitterness really goes well with the sausage flavor.
I made this tonight with some Italian chicken sausage I saw at the store for $2.99/lb and it was delicious! Thank you for the excellent recipe!
Loved cooking this, but for next time I will definitely add more broth and let the beans soak in it a little longer, as mine ended up quite dry!
I cooked this today and followed your directions and ingredient list. Super flavorful and quick. I did not know why some recipes called for Cannellini beans and other recipes call for northern or navy. I just always called them white beans but will be more thoughtful when deciding which bean to cook.
Next time I make this I am going to follow some of the suggestions from your readers on different mix ins. What a good cool weather dish!
This cooked up so fast, the hubs was worried it wasn’t done. 😊 I love the simplicity and versatility of all the Budget Bytes recipes. I had some of those sun dried tomatoes in olive oil left over from another recipe and I added a few of those, as well as some feta, just because I’m obsessed. Yum. After dinner I scrambled up some eggs, threw in the leftovers, and wrapped it up in tortillas for breakfast burritos.
We liked this a lot! I think if I made again, I’d add a little broth to get all of the brown bits up off the bottom and have just a little more sauce to it.
Omg I loved this dish! Hubs was skeptical at first and then scarfed it down. The only change I made was using my own beans instead of canned. This was delicious, simple, fast and so yummy.