White Bean Italian Sausage Bake

 2 cans cannellini beans, drained and rinsed (12-15 oz, can also be Great Northern beans)

1 can fire roasted tomatoes (12-15oz)

1 lb Isernios hot Italian sausage

1 medium onion or 1/2 large onion, diced

3-4 cloves garlic, fine diced

3 Tbsp all purpose flour

10-12 oz baby spinach

1 1/2 cups Mozzarella, shredded and divided

1 cup breadcrumbs (I used Italian  herb breadcrumbs)|

4 Tbsp Olive oil, divided

Optional: red pepper flakes to taste

Optional: 1/2 inch cubes or pearls of Mozarella 

Pre-heat oven to 375F.

Heat half the olive oil in a large oven-proof skillet. Cook the Italian sausage until browned.

Add onion, garlic, and red pepper flakes (if using) to sausage and cook for 2-3 minutes until softened.

Sprinkle flour over sausage and veg mixture and stir together 2 minutes.

Add half the spinach and stir in, cook until wilted, then add second half  of spinach and repeat.

Pour in tomatoes and beans, cooking 2-3 minutes, then add half the mozzarella to the mix and stir in. Turn off heat.

If using, tuck cubes or pearls of mozzarella into the top of the bean-meat-veg mix.

Top all with remaining mozzarella. 

Mix remaining olive oil into the breadcrumbs, and sprinkle over the top of all.

Bake in 375F oven for 25-30 minutes until browning and bubbly at edges.

We gobbled this up, burning our mouths because we couldn’t stop eating it once we tasted it, fresh from the oven.

Other thoughts:You can add other veg to this really easily. One of the inspiration recipes used twice the amount of canned tomatoes, mixing types of tomatoes. I can see fresh cherry tomatoes being tucked into the top of the dish, for tomato lovers (which we are decidedly not).

For us, I imagine browning some zucchini and mixing it in to delicious results. Or some par-boiled butternut squash, adding a little sweetness to the dish. Some fresh basil in there would also be delicious. And you can skip the cheese altogether, because this was delicious even without the cheesy bits, but…why bother? Cheese is life.

Finally, I can see this being entirely vegetarian, with just adding more herbs to the dish to replace the flavors the sausage brought. The beans add so much protein to this dish, it could be amazing even without meat.