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. :)
Excellent recipe! I happened to have all these ingredients on hand (even the same bag of spinach as you Beth!). Instead of adding extra salt, we added grated parmesan to each of our plates. A definite winner!
I made this with frozen spinach and it was great! I thawed it in the microwave and squeezed out the excess moisture through a towel so it wouldn’t be soggy and it was a delicious meal we’ll be making over and over again. Top wit grated Parmesan if you have any, it’s worth the extra step!
Adding in some cherry tomatoes and some sliced up cherry peppers bumped up this dish’s brightness and flavor a bit. But it was a great starting point.
Don’t care for the taste of fennel in Italian sausage, so will use plain sausage and add garlic, onions and salt, as well as some dry oregano and basil.
I found this overwhelmingly sausage-y. It sounded good, and I liked that it was quick. I sauteed the sausage, added the rinsed beans, then the chopped spinach. It was disgusting. My husband ate it (after spooning it over steamed rice), but after one taste, I couldn’t eat it at all. I suppose it’s because I’m used to Italian sausage being a grace note in the background of spaghetti or lasagna, not up front and so very present. I also found it greasy – maybe because the sausage wasn’t drained as I followed the directions implicitly. Egg and toast to the rescue for dinner. Very sad. Won’t be making this again
Just made this tonight. I added one grated carrot and half a chopped leek. It’s brilliant, will definitely make it again. Perfect for a chilly night.
I made almost this exact thing the other day but used kale instead of spinach and took advantage of some chicken Italian sausage we happened to have. It was delicious and healthy and even my teenage son was a fan.
I was missing an acidic flavor, so I added some feta. The acidity definitely brings this dish alive! Try finding an acidic ingredient to add.
Okay so I’ve found the comments to be helpful in the past when working with what I have or getting ideas so I thought I’d share mine here! Please note, everyone in the comments is 100% correct, this recipe is so flavorful thanks to the sausage that you can really do anything to it and it will be good.
Once Beth recommended broccoli instead of spinach, I decided to roast frozen broccoli and cauliflower (https://www.budgetbytes.com/oven-roasted-frozen-broccoli/). I used these vegetables to replace the spinach and 1 can of beans
Browned the sausages in their casings, sliced, added back to the pan to brown
Added 1 can of cannellini beans with the liquid because I was feeling brave — great to get brown bits off the bottom!
Added the 16oz roasted brocc/cauli, and decided at the end to throw in 4 oz of frozen spinach to bulk up the veg factor (it didn’t need it necessarily, but I’m also not mad at it for joining the party)
I know it sounds like I changed the recipe entirely, but cooking these Budget Bytes recipes has given me so much confidence to try new stuff, so thank you!
Oh My!!! So simple and so good!! Just me so I had it for a few dinners and lunches. Going to be a regular in my kitchen for sure!
I cannot find this recipe on the app. I searched by title, I searched by “Italian sausage” and “white beans,” and found no matches. Does the app have fewer recipes than the website?
It does, but this one is available on the app, so let me tell you where to find it. :) The app comes pre-loaded with 500 recipes and the rest, including everything I’ve created since the app launched, are available for you to download to your app through the app’s marketplace (you can still get them for free). Just tap the little shopping bag icon on the bottom of the home page to go to the marketplace. Then make sure to tap over to “recipes” at the top instead of “bundles” before you search. If you search there for “Italian Sausage” it should be the first one that pops up. :)
I just wanted to thank you for such an easy and delicious meal. Meals like this really save me when I am exhausted. I call them “as easy as scrambled eggs” meals. I would love to see more like this!
I used a very similar recipe for years and we love it. It’s a simple, quick and inexpensive meal and the only thing I serve with it is bread. My original recipe calls for 2 large garlic cloves (sliced thin) and 1 onion sliced thin. I use Jimmy Dean’s regular sausage and it’s worked well.
I used a pound of mild italian sausage but added a heavy dose of red pepper flakes since I like it hot, along with a little extra dried basil and oregano.
I used canned canellini beans from Aldi and those were mostly mush by the time I stirred in the spinach, even though I was careful. I think you’d have to use dry beans (already cooked) for this to keep the shape in Beth’s photos. The flavor was good, but it was not visually appealing.
Also, I am 100% sure they were canellini, and not navy… Maybe something about Aldi’s brand?
I definitely used canned beans for this, but you’re right, it might be something about the brand used. I do find textural differences in canned beans between brands. Unfortunately I don’t remember which brand I used this time around, but I tend to go with store brands unless those aren’t available, then I’ll get Bush’s or whatever is available.
I had the exact same issue.
The flavor is good, so next time I’m going to wilt the spinach, and then add the beans.
Good for how easy it was, but seemed to be missing something on it’s own. My guy had the bold idea to put sriracha on top. Yum! Scooped on top of a crusty baguette, it was scrumptious.