It’s time for What To Make With What’s On Sale! Occasionally, Sunflower Market or Sprouts will have chicken sausage on sale for around $2/lb, and it’s frequently on sale for $3/lb. They have several different varieties, including Apple, Basil, Baja, Cajun, and Hot Italian, although the varieties in stock will vary.
Here’s some ideas for what to make with this tasty, inexpensive sausage!
One of the simplest ways to prepare chicken sausage is on the grill. Over a medium fire, grill the sausages for 10-15 minutes, turning every 5 minutes. (If you want to be sure the sausages are cooked through without getting them too black, steam them in a half-inch of water in a skillet for 10 minutes before grilling.) Try serving the grilled sausage on a hoagie topped with salsa or fruit chutney.
Image credit: Allrecipes.com
This Spicy Chicken Sausage with Mango-Pineapple Salsa features a chicken sausage-salsa-fruit mixture over cilantro rice. Any of the spicy or fruity varieties of Sunflower Market’s chicken sausage work well in this recipe. (Canned black beans can easily be substituted for the soybeans, if desired.)
Most recipes for gumbo call for chicken and sausage, so why not make gumbo with chicken sausage instead? This 5-star gumbo recipe from Paula Deen is delicious: just leave out the chicken breasts and replace the smoked sausage with chicken sausage!
Have you ever made risotto? It’s not as difficult as it’s rumored to be…really!
Image credit: Martha Stewart
This Tomato & Sausage Risotto has a fairly short list of ingredients; try it with the Hot Italian or Basil varieties of chicken sausage. Risotto requires the Arborio variety of rice, which you can find in the bulk section.
Emeril Lagasse’s Chicken & Apple Sausage Hash with Fried Eggs would make a yummy savory breakfast. I can’t wait to try this recipe with some fresh herbs from my little windowsill garden. :)
What’s your favorite variety of chicken sausage from Sunflower Market? How do you like to prepare it?
$1.25 for Lucerne (half gallon) at Safeway, Fri-Sun Only
You post this at lunch time on purpose, don’t you? You’re killing me, everything sounds so yummy! :)
Thanks for a GREAT post, Abby! :)
We love to use their chicken cajun sausage in gumbo – we had that on Wednesday, in fact! The sausage we got was kind of “loose” – not very tightly packed and it was coming out of the ends, so it didn’t work well to slice, so I pulled it out of the casing and browned it for the gumbo. Sometimes, I put it in the freezer for a few minutes, which makes it easier to slice if you want to do that before cooking.
Chicken is probably third on the list of meats we like (after beef and pork), so I’m not a huge fan of cooking the sausage indoors unless it’s with sometime else – just seems kind of bland. But, it’s great grilled!
Their chicken Italian sausage is good in Cook’s Illustrated’s Skillet Penne with Sausage and Spinach – though, I swear their recipe is wrong and should call for 1 lb of pasta, not 1/2 a pound.
http://www.cooksillustrated.com/recipes/detail.asp?extcode=N1FMIES00&docid=8394&frtk=f3f4355d-891b-425b-b82a-37de9e667baf
We tried the skillet penne with sausage and spinach last night and LOVED it! Thanks for the tip! :)
We made homemade pizza tonight with the Chicken sausage (basil & feta) and roasted red peppers – it was awesome. Need to pick up some more sausage during this sale.
We make chicken tacos with the Baja chicken, or chipotle chicken sausage. We often make spaghetti sauce with the chicken basil sausage. I have used it to make meatballs, or sauté it with some veggies and serve with pasta. It has almost NO fat and is made only of chicken breast meat.