one-skillet sausage and mushroom cassoulet
peasant food? tres chic!
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We’re headed from Morocco to 14th-century France with this week’s recipe. Cassoulet is a rustic farmhouse food with origins in Southwestern France. It is peasant food at its finest — throw a bunch of random meat and vegetable odds and ends together in a pot, season and simmer it until it’s absolutely delicious, cover it in bread, and serve it to the masses! This version is a tomato-y sausage, bean, and mushroom casserole of sorts, topped with a crunchy Parmesan crust. It’s a bit like a stew, but with a crunchy cheesy crouton crunch. It’s damn good
I wrote my first cassoulet recipe when I was developing the recipes for Eat To Beat Depression and Anxiety by Dr. Drew Ramsey. Beans are packed with magnesium, which is proven to help reduce anxiety, and are thus a fantastic food to include in your diet. Beans are also a key ingredient in cassoulet, so when Dr. Ramsey and I set out to create a set of recipes that would help battle anxiety through nutrition, cassoulet was at the top of our list. Mushrooms were also high on Dr. Ramsey’s list of key ingredients to include, thanks to their anti-inflammatory properties. And just like that — mushroom cassoulet was born!
The version that I wrote for ETBDA included both sausage and chicken, but to keep this recipe super quick and simple, I chose to use sausage only. But if you happen to have some leftover cooked chicken laying around — throw it in there when you add the beans!
This meal is healthy, cozy comfort food at its finest. Plus you sound fancy AF when you tell people you’re making cassoulet for dinner. (Don’t mess it up by pronouncing it wrong — it’s “ka-soo-lay”!)
what should I serve it with?
This is a complete meal all on its own. It offers both plant- and meat-based protein and tons of vegetables between the mushrooms and tomatoes. But I do love a good dipping situation, and I do love a leafy green situation, so I usually serve cassoulet with a VERY simple arugula salad (arugula + salt + pepper + lemon juice + EVOO) and some delicious bread. I like to scoop the cassoulet up with bread and basically pretend like the bread is my fork.
but how do I deal with mushrooms?
Throw them in a colander. Run them under water. Slosh them around with your hands to knock the dirt off. If a stem feels super hard, throw it away; otherwise, just keep it on. You can either throw them in a food processor and pulse to chop them up, or just chop them up by hand on a cutting board.
There is a dirty (pun intended) little rumor that you should not wash mushrooms with water, and should instead painstakingly take a towel and brush the dirt off of each individual mushroom. Do not do this. Yes, using my method, the mushrooms soak up a bunch of excess water — but it doesn’t matter! You just cook them in a hot skillet and the water evaporates right off. Easy!
a refresher on a crucial What To Cook best practice
Every single week, before you go to the grocery store — read the substitutions list below the recipe. You might find that you already have perfectly good substitutions for most of the things on your list! A few quick examples from this week’s recipe:
You can use any ground meat in your freezer, not just sausage.
You can use any onion or leek that you have in place of the shallot.
If you have some carrots and celery in the fridge, you should chop those up too and throw them in when you cook the onion.
Great Northern Beans are what I’d choose if I went shopping, but if I have a can of any white beans in the pantry, I’m going to use those!
As always, use whatever vinegar you already have in the pantry.
one-skillet sausage and mushroom cassoulet
Serves 6 (the leftovers are wonderful!)
~25 minutes active cook time, 50 minutes total
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