Sausage with Apples and Fennel

Sausage with Apples and Fennel is a sheet pan dinner you will want to add to your rotation. Cooked all in one pan over rice for an fantastic week night dinner with just one pan to wash.  A great combination of flavors with just a hint of licorice.

Sheet pan dinners are great when it comes time to clean up, but the challenge is to make sure everything can cook for the same amount of time without one ingredient being overcooked.  Having great flavors that mix well together is the easy part.  With the combination of sausage, apples and fennel, you have a dish that meets all my requirements.  First, it’s delicious, second the apples are not mushy by the time the sausage has cooked, and last but not least, you only have one pan to clean.  I would suggest using a firm apple like Fuji but any firm apple will keep it’s texture for this dish.  Choose ones that you like.

Stemilt sent me some apples and pears and so of course I’ve been experimenting with apple and pear dishes.  Pears are so delicate and delicious, I find myself enjoying them by themselves but I did save some and made Chicken and Pears last week, an old favorite.  Any time I spot Stemilt apples or pears in the grocery, I’ll choose them.  I’ve found their fruit to be so much better than other fruit that is shipped to our area during the off season.

For this dish I liked the idea of adding fennel along with the apples.  The sweet and savory were a great combination with the Italian sausage.  By using the pre-made rice, all the flavors from the apples, fennel and sausage soak into the rice while it is cooking.  You can leave out the fennel if you don’t like the slightly licorice flavor it adds and the dish would still be great with just apples and sausage.  However, when fennel is cooked, the licorice flavor is hardly detectable.

This is a great dish for a busy week night.  It all comes together in the time it takes you to slice the apples and fennel.

Adapted from Southern Living January 2017

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