Healthy Sausage Recipes

For a fast weeknight pasta dinner, why not cook your sauce and pasta all at once? By using the exact amount of water you need to cook the pasta--no colanders here--the starch that cooks off into your pasta water, which you usually drain away, stays in the pot, giving you delectably creamy results.

A piping-hot cast-iron skillet turns pizza dough into a puffy, crisp-bottomed crust (similar to focaccia). If you have children, let them help make this easy pizza recipe: While you cook the sausage, have the kids tear up the kale--no knife required!

These meatballs are flavor-packed--thanks to a little sausage added to the ground chicken mix--and all-purpose: serve them with spaghetti for a healthy dinner, on a toothpick with dipping sauce as an easy appetizer or stir them into a soup to make it more satisfying.

Cooking the lentils in red wine adds rich, earthy flavor to this one-dish skillet supper. We prefer French green lentils in this dish--they're smaller, cook faster and hold their shape better than brown lentils. Look for them in well-stocked supermarkets or natural-foods stores.

An antipasto lover's dream—amped up with plenty of veggies. Adding the arugula on top keeps the greens from wilting when you pack it to go.

Turn zucchini into a lower-carb version of pizza with this easy recipe. Using the hasselback technique creates a fun and unique way to stuff zucchini with all the goodness of classic pizza--pepperoni, sauce and melty cheese.

In this veggie-heavy lasagna recipe, zucchini slices fill in for some of the noodle layers, trimming carbs without sacrificing flavor.

Some like it hot--but if you don't, sweet Italian turkey sausage is also delicious in this healthy gnocchi recipe. Serve with a mixed green salad with sherry vinaigrette.

Here, we put all the components of a classic shrimp boil into foil packets for cute, individually portioned meals. Be sure to choose extra-large, shell-on shrimp, which stay plump and juicy during the 15 to 20 minutes on the grill.

In this stuffed zucchini recipe, turkey sausage and tomato are mixed with quinoa before filling the zucchini boats. Fresh marjoram lends floral notes to the quinoa-stuffing recipe, but any fresh herb will work.

Bake up some Manchego cheese toasts and uncork a bottle of Ribera del Duero to enjoy alongside this healthy pot of soup. Both sweet and hot Italian sausage work well.

This healthy broccoli rabe and turkey sausage lasagna recipe has plenty of vegetables and goes light on sausage, so it's lower in fat and calories than traditional lasagna recipes. The recipe makes enough for two 8-by-8-inch casseroles (four servings each)--have one for dinner tonight and freeze the other for a night when you don't have time to make dinner. Or, feel free to make one larger lasagna (in a 9-by-13-inch pan) instead of two smaller ones; just increase the cooking time a bit for the larger pan size.

These sausage and potato casserole cups are the perfect addition to any breakfast or brunch. Make them ahead of time and freeze for a quick and easy breakfast on the go.

Adding a bright parsley-tarragon vinaigrette brings fresh flair to sausage and peppers. Serve with some crusty bread to sop it all up.

This recipe follows the Spanish and Portuguese tradition of pairing mild white fish with full-flavored cured sausage--just a bit gives the whole dish a rich, smoky flavor. Make it a meal: Enjoy with steamed green beans and roasted potatoes tossed with thyme and coarse salt.

In this healthy stuffed peppers recipe, a delicious jambalaya filling of chicken and Cajun spices gets baked inside of bell peppers. Traditional jambalaya is made with green bell peppers, but you can use green, yellow, or orange peppers (or a mix) for this dish. Look for bell peppers with even bottoms, so that they stand upright on their own.

Oats get a new life in this savory dish, serving as the backbone for a satisfying combo of sausage, greens, tomatoes, and herbs.

Total happiness in a bowl: pasta, sausage, tomatoes and herbs. The tomatoes get sweet and tender and turn into sauce with the stock and the pasta. Without ever adding any butter, the spaghetti sauce is rich and silky. Adding the herbs at the end gives the dish a fresh pop of color and flavor. This is one healthy pasta recipe we can definitely get behind!

These eggplant pizzas have all the classic flavors of a real pizza without all the carbs. Opt for spicy Italian sausage if you like the heat! Serve these mini pizzas with a green salad on the side to complete the meal.

This breakfast-for-dinner fried egg skillet is a no-brainer alternative to takeout when you're rushed. The sausage and dark leafy greens are cooked in the same pan as the eggs, so cleanup is a cinch. Loading kale into this quick dinner recipe provides some calcium as well as vitamins and fiber. Serve with whole-grain toast and simple tomato aioli for a weeknight dinner that's ready in 20 minutes.

Low in carbs and rich in Vitamin C, bell peppers add flavor as well as volume to this slightly spicy dish. For more heat, use hot turkey Italian sausage links rather than mild. Make it a sandwich by serving it inside a toasted bulky roll.

This healthy vegetarian breakfast-sandwich recipe comes together in 5 minutes, but has plenty of protein from a vegetarian sausage patty and fiber from the whole-wheat bread and apple to keep you satisfied all morning long.

Here's our weeknight version of choucroute garni, “dressed sauerkraut,” made with chicken sausage. The flavor of the dish will vary depending on what type of chicken sausage you choose. We like the taste of roasted garlic sausage or sweet apple sausage in this recipe. And although any type of sauerkraut can be used, we prefer the crisp texture of refrigerated kraut over canned. Serve with roasted carrots and some mustard to spread on the sausage.

The classic flavors of jambalaya come together in these easy-peasy smoked sausage kebabs. Celery is one of the classic flavors in traditional jambalaya, so we included a pinch of celery seed in the marinade.