Kale, Sausage & Lentil Skillet Supper

Last month, one of PWN’s readers e-mailed me and mentioned EatingWell magazine. I hadn’t heard of it, but I happened to get an EatingWell 2010 daily calendar from Santa. It’s great because each week has a new recipe that is healthy and simple.

Since we try to eat a lot of kale at our house (it has quickly become one of my favorite veggies!), the recipe for Kale, Sausage & Lentil Skillet Supper caught my attention right away. Lentils are really easy to prepare and full of health benefits: they are full of fiber and help lower cholesterol; they help keep blood sugar under control; they contain many nutrients including iron, folate, manganese, tryptophan, protein and two different B-vitamins. So between the many health benefits of kale (read about it here) and lentils, this dinner will fill you up and provide you with loads of nutrients.

It was fairly easy to prepare but took longer than I expected, so do it when you have some time. It’s not active cooking the entire time, but requires some check in and stir every once in a while.

Recipe

3 tsp extra-virgin olive oil, divided

1 12-oz package cooked chicken or turkey sausage (I used Applegate Farms chicken sausage from Whole Foods)

1 medium onion, thinly sliced

2 tablespoons chopped garlic

Pinch of crushed red pepper flakes

2 ½ cups water

1 ½ cups red wine

1 cup lentils (I used French green and red, because we had a little of both at our house)

6-8 cups chopped kale leaves

1 tsp chopped fresh sage

¼ tsp sea salt

Freshly ground pepper

Heat 1 tsp olive oil in large skillet over medium heat. Add sausage and cook until browned on all sides (4-5 mins). Transfer to cutting board.

Add remaining 2 tsp olive oil and onion to pan and cook until browned (4-5 mins). Add garlic and crushed red pepper and cook, stirring, until fragrant (15 seconds). Add water and wine, increase heat to high and bring to a boil, scraping sides and bottom of pan. Add lentils, reduce heat to simmer, and cook partially covered for 40 minutes.

Add kale, sage and salt and cook, covered, stirring occasionally, until lentils and kale are tender, about 10 minutes. Slice sausage and stir into pan along with pepper. Cover and cook until heated, another few minutes.

It says this only makes 4 servings, however Ed and I ate it for dinner two nights in a row, plus lunches. Also, I added some purple cabbage because we didn’t have quite enough kale. We ate it with some quinoa and it was delicious – very filling.

Enjoy!