Description
Chicken sausage broccoli orzo brings together tender pasta, hearty sausage, and fresh broccoli in one skillet that comes together in about twenty minutes. Your dinner table gets a satisfying, weeknight-friendly meal that tastes like you spent way more time cooking than you actually did.
Ingredients
Scale
Pasta Base:
- 1 cup orzo pasta
Proteins and Vegetables:
- 2 chicken sausages, sliced
- 2 cups broccoli florets
Aromatics and Seasonings:
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
- salt and pepper to taste
- parmesan cheese for serving
Instructions
- Bring a pot of salted water to a boil and add 1 cup of orzo pasta, cooking for 9 to 11 minutes until it reaches an al dente texture, then drain it thoroughly.
- Pour 2 tablespoons of olive oil into your large skillet and set it over medium heat for about 1 minute until the oil shimmers.
- Slice 2 chicken sausages into half-inch rounds and add them to your hot skillet, letting them cook for 6 to 8 minutes while stirring occasionally until the edges turn golden brown.
- Drop 2 minced garlic cloves and 1/4 teaspoon of red pepper flakes into your skillet, stirring constantly for 1 minute to release their fragrances.
- Add your 2 cups of broccoli florets to the skillet and allow them to cook over medium heat for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until they become tender-crisp.
- Return the drained orzo to your skillet with the sausage and broccoli mixture, then taste and adjust with salt and pepper as needed.
- Transfer everything to serving plates and sprinkle with Parmesan cheese if that appeals to you.
Notes
- Cook your orzo just until al dente so it doesn’t turn mushy when you mix it with the sausage and broccoli.
- Brown the sausage properly before adding other ingredients, as this develops flavor that carries through the whole dish.
- Cut your broccoli florets into similar sizes so they cook evenly and finish at the same time as the other components.
- If you’re keeping carbs lower, swap the orzo for cauliflower rice or zucchini noodles, and the cooking time stays about the same since those cook faster than pasta.
- Grated Parmesan stirred in at the end gives better flavor distribution than sprinkling it on top afterward.
- Prep Time: 5 minutes
- Cook Time: 12 minutes
- Category: More Chicken Recipes
- Method: Sautéing
- Cuisine: American
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 4
- Calories: 360 kcal
- Sugar: 2 g
- Sodium: 480 mg
- Fat: 18 g
- Saturated Fat: 3.5 g
- Unsaturated Fat: 13 g
- Trans Fat: 0 g
- Carbohydrates: 30 g
- Fiber: 4 g
- Protein: 20 g
- Cholesterol: 45 mg