This is the absolute best Thanksgiving side you've probably never heard of. In my opinion, sides should be simple, easy to prepare, and more delicious than the turkey. This one is quick, dead simple, and the tastiest thing you'll have at the table. It's absolutely the ultimate Thanksgiving recipe. Thank you MawMaw.
Ingredients
1 package hot breakfast sausage
1 red bell pepper
1 small yellow onion
2 stalks celery
2 cloves garlic
1 dry lipton noodle mix
2 1/2 cup boiling water
1/2 cup white rice
Salt, pepper, garlic powder
The first thanksgiving I spent with my wife’s family, I was met with a side dish that stood head and shoulders above the rest. It was a simple combination of sausage and rice, but it quickly became my all time favorite Thanksgiving dish.
We’ll start with our veggie prep, and this dish uses a classic cajun trinity. That’s bell pepper, onion, and celery. Dice your bell pepper into a fine dice by taking off the top and bottom. From there, remove the seeds and lay the pepper out like a book. Cut the pepper into strips, and then cut those strips into a nice dice. Dice your small onion as well your 2 celery stalks. Mawmaw doesn’t add garlic to hers, but I will be breaking with that tradition because garlic belongs in everything. I think 2 cloves is totally fair here. Grate those on a microplane and our veggie prep is finished.
At the stove, bring a large skillet up to temp over medium high heat. Once hot, add in your spicy breakfast sausage. Break that up with a stiff spatula and let this brown nicely. Once the meat is browned, add in your pepper, onion and celery. The garlic can wait a little while we sweat the other veggies in the fat from the sausage. If the pan is a little dry, add in a squeeze of olive oil. Once softened, add in the garlic and let it cook for about a minute or two. Season this with salt, pepper, and garlic powder. You can remove this from the heat and we can turn to the other portion of this dish. This is also the time for you to turn the oven up to 350 Fahrenheit.
To cook the rice mix, we’ll bring two and a half cups of water up to a boil and add in your packaged soup mix along with 1/2 cup of of unwashed white rice. The starch is going to help us create a creamy delicious final product. Drop that to a simmer, cover, and cook the rice with the soup mix for about 20 minutes. There’s enough water in here to cook the soup and rice without leaving us with a soupy mess at the end. After 20 minutes, the rice should be cooked and we can mix in our cooked sausage and veggie mix. Transfer this to a baking dish and place that in the oven for around 10 minutes. The moisture left in the pan should be soaked up by the rice and you’ll be left with a creamy, fluffy beautiful casserole.
I’m pretty sure this is the most straightforward recipe I’ve made on the channel, but it also just may take the top spot for the tastiest. It’s everything you want in a Thanksgiving side, It’s carb-y, it’s perfect with gravy, and it’s a whole better than turkey. I highly recommend working this into your holiday plans this year.
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