The Vegan Italian Sausage. Like the catering joints do it. Drenched in marinara and topped with a few peppers. Maybe some giardiniera if you’re feeling cheeky. It’s kinda different than a regular Sausage & Peppers but not really. Every catered family party I’ve ever attended as a youngin’ had these.

As always, if you dig this recipe, tag me at @draggedthroughthegarden on instagram and we can talk about how every single family party had catering with this entree available.

The Vegan Italian Sausage. Catering-style food hits different.

THE VEGAN

ITALIAN SAUSAGE

prep time: 10 minutes
cook time: 90 minutes

Not pictured: like three more of these.

This recipe requires you to make a marinara. Then you cook some vegan sausages and then cook them even further in the sauce. This recipe yields between 4-6 sausages.

To start, you’re going to start your sauce.

What you’ll need:

garlic
onion
olive oil
canned peeled tomatoes (35oz)
tomato paste (optional)
salt
pepper
oregano
red pepper flakes
basil

Real quick, make sure your sausages are out of the freezer.

Dice up half an onion and mince down 3-4 cloves of garlic. In a saucepan, add olive oil and bring it up to a medium-low flame. Add your garlic into the olive oil and once it starts to brown a little bit, add all of your onion. Let all of that cook until your house smells nice…or until it looks cooked. Add a tablespoon of salt, pepper, oregano and red pepper flakes.

Next, you’re going to add your tomato stuff. Open your can of tomatoes and toss the whole can into the saucepan.

Stir up the tomatoes with the rest of the stuff in your pan and bring the heat up some. Add more olive oil if you wish. I know I did. Let the tomatoes cook for a few minutes and then start busting them down with a wooden spoon or something comparable. Now throw a fistful of basil in there.

I promise it’s fresh basil, it just had a hard day.

Add another tablespoon of the seasonings from earlier. Salt, pepper, oregano and red pepper. You can go easy on the red pepper if you like but I didn’t want to. Now give everything a thorough stir and bring the flame up to a boil. Once it starts to boil, throw a lid on it and drop the flame all the way down to a simmer for 45 minutes.

Next, time to deal with the sausages and peppers. You can either bake the sausages to start the cooking process or throw them in a pan. For this recipe, I put them on a pan and baked them first before going into the sauce.

What you’ll need:

vegan sausages (4-6)
salt
pepper
fennel seed
olive oil
bell peppers (red or green, or red and green)
italian rolls

Preheat your oven to 400°. Cut your peppers up julienne style, which is fancy talk for “into strips.”

Now take your sausages and rub them down with olive oil, salt, pepper and fennel seed. Toss your sausages in a cast iron or baking sheet. Throw the peppers in there too but keep an eye on them because they will cook faster than the sausages. Allow the sausages to cook for 25 minutes, flipping them every so often.

I did the peppers little by little to ensure the pan wasn’t overcrowded.

This is the second addition of peppers but the sausages had been going for about 15 minutes here.

Set your peppers aside for now. Check on your marinara and give it a stir. It probably smells really good. Keep the lid off and add all of your sausages into the sauce. Bring it back to a boil, cover and then reduce to simmer again. Let the sausages cook in the sauce for 45 minutes.

Next, assuming it’s been 45 minutes, cut open a few bread rolls and toss them in the oven for a few minutes to warm them up and crisp them up ever so gently. Take your sausages out of the sauce and throw it on a roll. Add sauce and the peppers from earlier. Add a little giardiniera if you fancy a little giardiniera.