Sausage and Peppers, One Pot
Cured sausage, dried peppers, and crushed tomatoes over couscous. Made for the first night out of the car.
- calories
- 760
- weight
- 6 oz
- cal / oz
- 127
- protein
- 29 g
- serves
- 2, scales
- prep
- 5 min
- cook
- 15 min
- total time
- 20 min
- water
- 400 ml boiled
- cost
- $$
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Dinner
- Canister stove
- Liquid fuel
- Campfire coals
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Backpacking
- Nut free
- One pot
- Pre-mix at home
- Shelf stable
- Basic
Ingredients
| Dry-cured Italian sausage | 5 oz | soppressata or a hard salami; no refrigeration needed |
|---|---|---|
| Dried bell peppers | 1 cup | red and yellow, sliced and dehydrated |
| Tomato powder | 1/4 cup | stands in for a 14.5 oz can of crushed tomatoes |
| Garlic | 5 cloves | sliced thin, or 1 tsp granulated |
| Capers | 2 tbsp | drained and patted dry, in a small jar or pouch |
| Cayenne | 1/2 tsp | |
| Dried basil | 1 tbsp | |
| Olive oil | 3 tbsp | |
| Instant couscous | 1 cup | soaks in five minutes off the heat |
| Salt and black pepper | to taste |
Method
- Put the dried peppers in the pot with 400 ml of water. Bring it to a boil, then hold a low simmer for eight minutes until they go soft and floppy.
- Slice the sausage into coins and stir it in with the garlic, capers, cayenne, and basil. Two minutes is enough to warm the fat through.
- Whisk in the tomato powder off the heat. It clumps if you dump it into a rolling boil.
- Stir in the couscous and the olive oil, lid the pot, and set it off the stove for five minutes.
- Fluff it, taste, salt it. It should be thick enough to hold a spoon upright.
The original is a skillet dish built on fresh bell peppers blistered in oil and a can of crushed tomatoes. Neither travels. Dried peppers rehydrate into something close to roasted, and tomato powder does the work of the can at a tenth of the weight. Fresh Italian sausage becomes dry-cured salami, which needs no cooking and no cooler.
The capers and cayenne are what keep this from tasting like generic red sauce, so do not drop them for weight. Couscous goes in last and off the heat, because it only needs to sit in hot liquid, and boiling it turns the whole pot to paste.
Packing
Peppers, tomato powder, garlic, capers, cayenne, and basil go in one bag. Couscous in a second, sausage whole in its casing, oil in a leakproof bottle. Do not premix the couscous with the tomato powder or it hydrates unevenly.
Variations
- Swap couscous for instant polenta or minute rice to make it gluten-free.
- A hard cheese like pecorino grated in at the end thickens the sauce and adds fat.
- Sun-dried tomatoes in place of half the powder give it more chew.
https://www.lodgecastiron.com/blogs/recipe/sausage-peppers