This Rapini, Cannellini and Italian Sausage Melt is our new favorite easy, one-pan weeknight dinner

Our recipe for a cannellini, rapini and Italian sausage melt is gluten-free and incredibly cravable.

By Leslie Brenner

When you come right down to it, we’re all looking for the same elusive thing: Weeknight dinners that are quick and easy to make, delicious and satisfying. And if they can also be craveable, gluten-free and made in just one pan, so much the more fabulous.

An Italian-flavored Rapini, Cannellini and Italian Sausage Melt I recently concocted fits that bill — and then some.

I spent most of my adult life whipping up, at least once a week, pasta with Italian sausage and broccoli rape (aka rapini, aka broccoli rabe). It has long been my favorite easy comfort dinner. Though the dish is traditionally made with orecchiete as the pasta shape, I always used penne — smooth ones, not penne rigate. I just enjoy them more than those flat little ear-shapes.

No need for a recipe to achieve that old standard: Just blanch a bunch of rapini (saving the vitamin-filled water to cook the pasta in), brown a pound of Italian sausage, add the rapini, cook the pasta (saving a little cooking water), add pasta to rapini and sausage, along with a little pasta cooking water, cook briefly, add grated parm, a shake of Aleppo pepper and serve. To me it’s one of the most simply perfect dishes in the world. Garlic is a welcome but not entirely necessary enhancement.

But at some point I seriously cut back on refined-flour products (along with sugar), and so the dish changed for us from once-a-week favorite to once-in-a-while special treat.

Then came The Great Confinement, and with it, the feeling that under the circumstances, we should be able to eat whatever we want. The pasta dish appeared on our table with increasing frequency, the longer the pandemic stretched out. I made it with whole wheat pasta a few times, but it tasted punitive.

Beans, I thought. Beans and greens: Such a dreamy combo. Why not swap the pasta for cannellini beans — from a can, so it’s quick and easy? With the Italian sausage, of course. And Parm stirred in at the end.

It was good, but it wasn’t craveable. It wanted some spicy zing, and something melty on top.

Next time, I stirred in some harissa — North African chile paste kissed with caraway seed — and a bit of fresh rosemary. And then, after stirring in the Parm, I topped it with slices of fresh mozzarella. Not too much; I wasn’t looking for decadence, just irresistible, creamy deliciousness. Under the broiler it went, till it was bubbly and browning.

Eureka!!!

Treat yourself tonight, and let me know what you think.

RECIPE: Rapini, Cannellini and Italian Sausage Melt

What to make for Super Bowl Sunday: a big ol' pot of crazy-good Texas chili

A lot of people I know are really, really upset. Why? Because the Dallas Cowboys did not go all the way to the you-know-what.

Here's what I think they should do on Sunday, February 5: Make a big pot of Texas chili, turn on the TV, and pretend it's the Cowboys playing in the Super Bowl.

Why not? As long as they have something deliciously Texan to eat, that's the important thing. Right? After all, they're probably going to watch the Super Bowl. And the Super Bowl is, after all, in Texas this year. So chili is the thing. Maybe you want to make some guacamole, too (it wouldn't be the first time).

But back to the chili: Beans need not apply. Because we are in Texas, y'all. It's all about the meat. You can make a pot of pinto beans and serve it on the side, if that's your fancy. Just soak the beans overnight, drain them, place them in a big pot, cover with water by an inch, add an onion (cut in half), a bay leaf or two, a few whole garlic cloves (you don't even need to peel them), and (this is optional), a piece of slab bacon. Bring to a boil, then simmer a couple hours, till the beans are nice and tender.

But I digress.

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Here's the way I feel about chili: You could use an "easy" recipe. You know, one that uses chili powder and ground beef. But as far as I'm concerned, there's nothing like chili made the old fashioned way: by soaking whole dried chiles and grinding them to a paste. I also prefer to chop the beef roughly by hand rather than using ground beef. 

Start with the right cut, not something lean: I like a well-marbled piece of chuck. Enlist your butcher's help with this. Then use a sharp knife to cut it into 1/2-inch dice.

Then you'll toast a bunch of dried ancho chiles in a dry pan, cover them with boiling water and let 'em soak. Half an hour later, purée them with a little of the soaking water to a lovely smooth, thick paste. Brown the meat, cover it with the purée and stir together.

Isn't that lovely? This is why cooks love to cook. 

Add some of the liquid from soaking the chiles, some garlic cloves and onion you've charred in the dry pan then chopped, freshly ground toasted cumin seeds, dried oregano, a couple of bay leaves and cayenne for heat.

Simmer it all together for a couple of hours: The beef will become incredibly tender and all those wonderful flavors will meld and deepen. In other words, it cooks down into crazy-good Texas chili. 

Here's the recipe:

Just the thing for watching (or not watching!) a hugely important football game in Texas. Let everyone serve themselves out of the pot. Put out bowls of chopped onion and grated cheese as garnish. Feel like making cornbread, or corn tortillas? That will go great – as will guacamole and chips. And beer. 

Houston, we have *no* problem.