Italian sausage, sweet peppers and onions, slow baked with crushed and diced tomatoes, olive oil and seasonings, served here on buttered and toasted rolls.
Baked Italian Sausage and Peppers
I love Italian sausage and peppers, but it never occurred to me to cook it in the oven.
While I think that this dish is not really authentic Italian, but more of a fusion of Italian with American, Italians do cook a lot of sausages, though the kinds do vary by region. Typically when authentic Italian sausages are referenced, it means salamina or salame da sugo, cotechino, zampone, or capello del prete and not the typical sweet or hot Italian sausages in our markets here in the U.S.
I love eating this dish, especially on a good sturdy bun, but mostly prepared it in what I thought was the more traditional manner - whole sausages, browned off in a skillet of oil, set aside while sliced peppers and onions are sauteed in that same skillet, then everything combined together.
Sometimes it's served as an entree with mashed potatoes, pasta or rice.
Sometimes it's cooked with potatoes.
Sometimes other vegetables like cauliflower, carrots and broccoli are included with the potatoes.
In those cases and others, there are no tomatoes included at all in the dish.
Italian sausages are also pretty awesome when cooked in the air fryer by the way, and the peppers and onions can also be done in there though I do them separate from one another.
I saw this oven version when scrolling through Instagram one day from Antoinette's Italian Kitchen @antoinettesitaliankitchen and thought I'd give her method a try.
Antoinette said that once you tried this way you would never go back.
The real truth?
This method really is perfection y'all!
Here's what you'll need to make this Baked Italian Sausage and Peppers dish.
- 2 (19 ounce) trays sweet or hot Italian sausage links, for about10 links (we like the hot!)
- 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil, divided
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/4 teaspoon freshly cracked black pepper
- 1/2 tablespoon garlic powder, or to taste
- 1/2 tablespoon onion powder, or to taste
- 1 large sweet or yellow onion, halved and sliced thick
- 4 large sweet bell peppers, assorted colors, trimmed and sliced thick
- 1 (15 ounce) can crushed tomatoes, undrained
- 1 (10 ounce) can diced tomatoes with green chilies (like Rotel) undrained
- 1/2 cup water
- Toasted sturdy sandwich rolls
Here's how to make them!
I had one pack of Italian sausage in the freezer I needed to use, so I'm making the full recipe of sauce but with one pack sausages and half of the peppers and saved the leftover remaining sauce to use after I picked up another package of sausage. I have to say though, I instantly regretted only having cooked 1 pack of sausage, because my husband gobbled these up so fast and they were gone in a flash!
Rather than pricking them with a fork and cooking them whole, cut the sausages in half, crosswise and at a slight angle and place into a 9 x 13-inch casserole dish. Drizzle with about half of the olive oil and season with salt, pepper, garlic and onion powder; toss to coat.
Top with the sliced onion.
To that add the sliced sweet peppers.
Mix together the crushed and diced tomatoes with the water.
Pour over the sausages and peppers. Drizzle with additional olive oil all over the top.
Cover loosely with foil.
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Bake in a preheated 350 degrees F oven for 1 hour, stirring occasionally. I'm using my Oster countertop oven (#ad) for these. I've gotten to the point that between that and my Ninja double oven (#ad), I never really use my big range anymore, and not even just in the summertime! Well, I do store some cookware in it.
Uncover and pull all of the sausages to the top. Return to the oven uncovered and cook another 30 minutes, or until sausages are browned, turning a few times.
There is just something about that slow oven braise in the tomatoes that makes a major difference. I've already made this several times and it's my favorite way to prepare this dish.
If you're going to prepare these as sandwiches, I highly recommend buttering up the rolls inside and out and lightly toasting them. I used my garlic bread butter blend and it was a perfect match! Today I used po'boy pistolette rolls. Reduce the oven temperature to 325 degrees F while you prepare the butter blend and butter the rolls.
After you remove your sausage and peppers, add the bread and let it toast at 325 degrees for about 5 minutes, until they are lightly toasted and heated through, but not crisp.
Spoon the sausage and peppers into the sandwich rolls or serve as an entree with mashed potatoes, rice or pasta or with a side of roasted potatoes.
For more of my favorite sandwich recipes, check out this collection on my Pinterest page!
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