Chicken Sausage and Mushroom Ragu
Here we have another one of those ‘must have’ comfort foods. This is a rich, thick, and meaty ragu that you would swear takes hours fussing over a hot stove. You may be surprised to know that this all comes together in less than 45 minutes, including the pasta cooking time. We used a combination of wild Chanterelle mushrooms with their cousin, Crimini, for this dish, but feel free to use any kind of mushrooms you like. Of course, we finish it off with lots of gooey mozzarella cheese. It is a comfort food, after all. Make it for a crowd, or make it for just a few. All the leftover ragu freezes beautifully, and you can rest assured knowing you’ve got a treasure in the freezer for another day.
Ingredients
- 2 pounds of Italian chicken sausage
- 1 tablespoon canola or vegetable oil
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 onion diced
- 6 cups of sliced mushrooms I used a combination of Crimini and Chanterelle
- 1 orange or yellow pepper diced
- 1, 28 ounce can of crushed fire roasted tomatoes
- 1 cup red wine
- 1 cup vegetable or chicken broth
- 2-3 tablespoons Italian seasoning or a combination of basil, oregano, marjoram, thyme and sage (combination of your choice, depending on what you like best)
- As always salt and pepper to taste
- ½ pounds of lasagna noodles
- About 1 cup grated parmesan or other hard cheese blend
- About 2 cups of grated mozzarella cheese
Instructions
- In a large pot of boiling water, cook lasagna according to package directions. Remove from heat, drain, and rinse thoroughly with cold water. Place noodles in a bowl and toss with a good drizzle of olive oil. If noodles are cool enough to handle at this point, take them out of the bowl and slice each noodle widthwise into between ½ and 1 inch strips. Set aside.
- In a large Dutch oven, heat oil on medium heat until it shimmers, then add sausage and sauté until cooked through. Remove from pan and set aside.
- In the same Dutch oven, sauté onion and peppers until softened. (You may need to add a little additional oil, depending on how much fat was in your sausage) Add mushrooms and continue cooking until cooked through and most of the liquid from the mushrooms has been cooked away. Now would be a good time to add salt and pepper.
- Add the red wine and cook for a couple of minutes, making sure to scrape up any of those delicious crusty bits left on the bottom of the pan.
- Return the chicken sausage to the pan,
- Add Italian seasoning, the canned tomatoes and broth. Cook until thickened. This won’t take but a very few minutes. Taste and adjust seasonings as needed.
- To serve: You can serve this in individual portions or family style. To serve family style, arrange the noodles in a very large, shallow serving bowl or baking dish. Spoon half of the hot ragu over the top, and then sprinkle on the mozzarella cheese. Top with the remaining ragu and sprinkle on the Parmesan cheese. Dive in.
- If you want to put this together to serve later, just follow the directions above, but put the noodles and ragu in an oven safe baking dish. Put it all together, cover with foil that has been sprayed with cooking spray, and bake until mixture bubbles. Pass big old chunks of crusty bread to make sure you get any left over sauce.