Italian sausages cooked in the oven with ratatouille, sauteed zucchini, bell pepper, tomatoes, onion, garlic, and eggplant.
My father loves ratatouille and Italian sausage, so when he saw a recipe in a magazine that combined the two, he was inspired to create his own version.
This is a great way to use up last-of-the-season garden vegetables.
Italian Sausages with Ratatouille Recipe
- Prep time: 20 minutes
- Cook time: 1 hour, 30 minutes
- Yield: Serves 4
If using fresh tomatoes instead of canned, you’ll want to peel them. The best way to do that is to score them at one end, and drop them in boiling water for 1 minute to blanch them. The peels will come off easily that way.
Ingredients
- Extra virgin olive oil
- 1 medium chopped onion, roughly chopped
- 2 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
- 1/2 pound of zucchini, cut into 1/2-inch dice
- 1 small eggplant, unpeeled, cut into 1/2-inch dice (1 lb or less)
- 1/2 red bell pepper, cut into 1/2-inch dice
- 1/2 green bell pepper, cut into 1/2-inch dice
- 1/2 yellow bell pepper, cut into 1/2-inch dice
- 1 pound of fresh tomatoes, skinned and chopped (or 1 14.5-oz can diced tomatoes)
- 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
- 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
- 1/8 teaspoon red pepper flakes
- 3/4 pound of sweet or old fashioned Italian sausages (you can use hot, but if you do, don’t add the red pepper flakes)
- 4 sprigs of thyme
- 1 sprig of rosemary
Method
1 Preheat oven to 400°F.
2 Cook onions and garlic: Using a large oven-proof pan over medium-high heat, sauté onions in olive oil until they begin to soften, about 5 minutes. Add garlic and reduce heat to low.
3 Brown the zucchini: While the onions and garlic are cooking over low heat, put 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a another large skillet over high heat.
As soon as the pan gets hot, add enough zucchini cubes to form a layer on the bottom of the pan.
Cook over high heat, stirring, until zucchini is lightly browned on all sides. Remove zucchini cubes, and add them to pan with the onions.
Repeat process until all of the zucchini cubes have been cooked.
4 Continue with the bell peppers, then the eggplant cubes, adding the browned vegetables to the onion pan as soon as they are cooked. Add more olive oil as needed.
5 Add the tomatoes, spices, water: Add the tomatoes (and their juice) to your large oven-proof pan with the rest of the vegetables, along with salt, black pepper, red pepper, thyme, rosemary and 1/4 cup of water. Bring to a boil.
6 Finish cooking in oven: Nestle the sausages in the pan. Transfer to the oven and cook, uncovered, for 30 to 40 minutes, until the sausages are cooked through.
