sausage and cannellini bean bake

Since the success of the squash and celeriac bake, I’ve been searching for more warming, healthy bakes. I liked the idea of sausages and cannelloni beans ever since I viewed it here, though I was confused by its terminology, as it was called a gratin. Just how could you make those ingredients into a gratin?

Despite my pedantry, I forged ahead, tempted by the ingredient list, which included the lovely fennel and powdery, aromatic sage.

The recipe comes from Real Simple, which is a magazine based in the US. But it also appears on a great recipe database – the MyRecipes network - which I recommend checking it out.

Basically, to make, sauté crumbled sausages (just remove the casings), onion, and fennel. The recipe doesn’t mention swiss chard in the ingredient list, though it does in the directions, which threw me a bit. I think you could add this, but as I wasn’t prepared for that, I simply added spinach leaves. Throw in garlic, sage and broth and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Transfer to a dish and top with a breadcrumb, oil, and parmesan mixture. Bake for 30 minutes.

The only changes I’d recommend making to this recipe to lighten it up would be:

1) Reduce the olive oil amounts. Five sprays of oil will do fine to lightly coat a baking dish. And use one tablespoon instead of two when making the breadcrumb topping.
2) I’m not sure exactly what they mean by ‘sweet Italian sausages’ but regular pork sausages work fine. I used Sainsbury’s BGTY extra lean sausages and they tasted great.
3) Don’t use ready-made seasoned breadcrumbs – make your own. Just use 1 or 2 pieces of bread and add salt and a few dried herbs.

The only thing I’m confused about is the calorie content that Real Simple gives. They say that the dish has 495 calories, but that the yield is 4-6 servings! So is it that amount if you have ¼ of the dish or 1/6 of the dish? Hmmmm….

Having made the dish, I would say it only serves four.

I’ve added up my calories, and it came to 1358 for the entire bake. In that case, each serving would equal 340 calories, which is much lighter! It’s very filling too.

I served this with steamed shredded cabbage and some sautéed courgettes, which went really well. But other vegetables would work well too – like carrots or kale, perhaps? Potatoes or parsnips would probably be too much – there’s enough starch coming from those cannellinis.

Has anyone else done a healthy sausage bake before? Any other ideas or variations?