The perfect weeknight meal loaded with delicious buttery farro and roasted Italian sausage with peppers and zucchini.
I cook a lot, like A LOT, and often times I’m making some extravagant dessert, or a sort of fine dining meal that my family may not like, so I like it when I make a tasty weeknight type of meal like this farro recipe loaded up with Italian sausage and peppers.
Whenever I can bust out a meal in under 45 minutes that I know the family will love is always a win in my book! If you’re a little nervous about farro, then let me ease your mind.
WHAT IS FARRO
If you’ve been following me for a while, then you know that I’m a bit of a traditionalist when it comes to classic recipes. With that being said I also like to share ingredients that maybe you’ve never heard of before, like farro. I know that you have heard of a lot of the classic recipes that I make but let me introduce you to a little ingredient that is used a ton in traditional Italian cuisine, farro.
Farro is a traditional grain from the Mediterranean region and is used heavily in Italy. It was a part of the daily diet back in ancient Rome and is packed with iron and fiber. It goes amazing in salads, soups and is a wonderful substitute to rice.
The best way that I can describe farro is that it is the perfect cross between brown rice and barley. It’s nutty, it’s chewy, but then it’s kind of tender, and it’s sort of meaty, it’s just an awesome combo of grain goodness that is dang delicious!
Bob’s Red Mill makes so many wonderful products, and I trust them with how they grow, harvest and package everything up. I got to see first-hand the farro going into the package and the wonderful smells and freshness was just unbelievable.
HOW TO COOK FARRO
There are really only two ways to cook farro, and that is cooking it in liquid or turning it into a risotto, or farrotto as they call it.
If you haven’t made risotto, it’s a process of adding in liquid a little bit at a time while constantly stirring until the grain sucks it up and then you add more. Repeat! Cooking farro in liquid could not be any easier as it is a basic 2 to 1 liquid to farro.
For the liquid you can use things like chicken stock or simply water. Bring the farro and liquid to a boil, then cover and simmer for 30 minutes or until it is tender. Boom you’re done!
I decided to take my farro recipe to another level by finishing with butter and fresh thyme and WHOA was it good!
COOKING THE SAUSAGE AND PEPPERS
The great part about this recipe is that while the farro is cooking, you can prep up and cook the Italian Sausage and peppers, along with a few other vegetables. Since the farro takes 30 minutes to cook, it’s plenty of time to slice up the vegetables and cook them.
I like using sweet or mild Italian sausage in this recipe because well to put it plainly I’m not much for spicy food. However, don’t let what I say stop you from loving on some good spicy Italian sausage.
You want to sear the Italian sausage in a large cast iron skillet or sauté pan just until they are golden brown on all sides, but don’t freak out if they aren’t cooked through completely.
Once they are browned, remove them from the pan and set them aside. Now, you want to kick the heat up as high as it can go until the fat from the Italian sausage is smoking, and then then you want to add in your peppers and other vegetables just to quickly brown them.
I used a combination of zucchini, squash, tomatoes and cipollini onions. You could use the same or feel free to change it up. The only thing I would have maybe added, would have been mushrooms!
Take the veggies out of the pan, seriously only cook them for like 3 minutes, and then deglaze with madeira wine and reduce it. Add in some stock then throw the sausages back in and let them braise until they are completely done.
All you want to do at this point is add the veggies in, season them up and boom! Finish this farro recipe off some fresh arugula, parmesan cheese and fresh thyme and oregano.
Italian Recipes
If you love this recipe then you will for sure like these Italian recipes.
- Authentic Italian Minestrone Soup Recipe
- Homemade Fettuccine Pasta with Recipe for Alfredo Sauce
- Homemade Linguine Pasta with White Clam Sauce Recipe
- Italian Ricotta Cheesecake Recipe
- Pistachio Ricotta Cookies – from Cooking with Nonna
Video
Farro Recipe with Italian Sausage and Peppers
Ingredients
For the Farro:
- 2 cups of Bob’s Red Mill Farro rinsed
- 6 cups of vegetable stock
- 2 tablespoons of unsalted butter
- 1 tablespoon of chopped fresh thyme
- sea salt and fresh cracked pepper to taste
For the Italian Sausage and Peppers:
- 3 tablespoons of unsalted butter
- 6 mild Italian sausage
- 12 to 14 peeled cipollini onions
- 8 garlic cloves
- 1 each seeded and thickly sliced red and yellow bell pepper
- 1 each thickly sliced green zucchini and yellow squash
- 1 cup of cherry tomatoes
- 2/3 cup of madeira wine
- 1 cup of beef stock
- 2 cups of packed arugula leaves
- ½ cup of shaved Parmesan cheese
- sea salt and fresh cracked pepper to taste
- optional: fresh thyme and oregano for garnish
Instructions
- Farro: Add the farro, vegetable stock and sea salt to a medium size pot and bring to a boil.
- Stir, add a lid and simmer over low heat for 30 minutes or until tender.
- Finish with butter, thyme, salt and pepper. Keep warm.
- Sausage and Peppers: Heat 1 tablespoon of butter in a large cast iron skillet over medium-high heat and sear the sausage on all sides until golden brown. Set the sausage aside.
- Turn the heat up to high and add in the cipollini onions and sear for 2 to 3 minutes or until browned.
- Add in the garlic and saute for 1 minute before adding in the peppers, zucchini, squash and tomatoes and pan sear for 2 to 3 minutes or until lightly browned.
- Remove the veggies from the pan and deglaze the pan with madeira and cook it until the liquid is reduced to 1/3.
- Add in the stock and cook for 3 to 4 minutes over medium heat and then add in the sausage and roasted vegetables and cook for 2 to 3 more minutes.
- Finish with remaining 2 tablespoons of butter, salt and pepper.
- Serve the cooked farro with the sausage and veggies and garnish with arugula, parmesan and herbs.
Nutrition
This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Bob’s Red Mill. The opinions and text are all mine.
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