Craving Italian flavors without the high carbs in pasta? Italian sausage casserole is an easy casserole recipe that is gluten free, grain free, GAPS diet friendly, and low carb, while full of delicious Italian flavors and nourishing, frugal ingredients.
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Do you miss Italian flavors like lasagne on the GAPS diet? Are you avoiding grains or eating low carb for other reasons but have a craving for Italian flavors?
There is no need to miss Italian style dinners while avoiding grains or starchy pastas! In fact, this easy casserole recipe is made with simple, though somewhat unexpected, ingredients, and can also be a frugal dinner. Especially compared to the price of gluten free and other special diet versions of pasta!
There are 4 main components to this Italian sausage casserole, and one of them is optional. You will need:
- half a head of cabbage
- Italian sausage or ground meat (I will show you how to season it into Italian sausage)
- good quality pasta sauce that suits your diet
- shredded cheese of your choice (this is the ingredient you could skip)
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Cabbage in casserole?
It sounds odd, I admit. At least, it sounds odd in an Italian style recipe.
The thing about cabbage is that it is not only inexpensive and readily available, but once cooked until soft, it doesn’t have all that much flavor. Boring by itself, but with enough seasoning it is filling and tasty.
Cooked cabbage isn’t a big hit with most Americans. This may be because boiled cabbage can be quite awful, to say nothing of smelling bad as it cooks. We aren’t going to boil the cabbage, and it won’t even smell bad.
In addition, cabbage is pretty good for us! Some benefits include:
- vitamin C, potassium, and other nutrients
- helps keep chronic inflammation in check
- fiber that may improve digestion
- prebiotics– which feed beneficial microbes in the gut that keep us well
- may help prevent heart disease and cancer
- antioxidants that protect our cells
- detoxification
But won’t it smell (or taste!) bad?
No, because we won’t boil it! That would smell bad.
Sautéing cabbage in some fat keeps it from smelling sulfurous. We will sauté it in some good fat with onions and garlic. It ends up soft, then we add salt and pepper. It will taste mild, but a little more flavorful than pasta would.
How (and why) to Make Sausage
Why not just buy sausage?
Well, you can buy excellent sausage! Many store bought sausages taste wonderful, some are affordable, and a few are made of clean ingredients.
Sadly, the affordable sausages are often not made with clean ingredients. From lower quality meat to corn syrup to all sorts of preservatives, colors, “natural flavors”, and more, most commercial sausage is not serving our health.
Actually, it is fairly detrimental! Here is an interesting, if somewhat alarming, list of better and worse sausage brands. *There is a category for plant based sausage on this list. I am not recommending that anyone eat plant based meat!
The good news is that sausage isn’t a mysterious or complicated food, at least in its raw form. All you really need is ground meat and seasonings! You can make it just right for your taste and dietary needs.
When I use chicken or turkey, I like to add something for additional moisture and cook them in plenty of fat, as those meats tend to be unpleasantly dry. For example, my turkey breakfast sausage recipe relies on zucchini for juiciness, though the zucchini flavor is undetectable. My chicken apple breakfast sausage recipe uses apple for both moisture and flavor.
How do I make Italian Sausage Casserole with cabbage?
First, sauté the onions until they are soft and lightly browned. Add chopped cabbage and garlic and cover; stir occasionally and add a tablespoon of water if it starts to stick. When the veggies are soft, season to taste with salt and pepper. Then spread in a baking dish.
The next step is Italian sausage. You can use store bought sausage for this. I find it very difficult to find sausage with clean ingredients, especially at a reasonable price, so I make my own!
First, toast some fennel seeds in a dry skillet. (You can skip this step -or even skip the fennel seeds– but they make it tastier! After a couple of minutes, the fennel seeds will be fragrant and browner; add raw, ground meat. I used pork. If you use turkey or chicken, you will need to add some fat to prevent sticking. Crumble and cook the pork and add the rest of the seasonings. When cooked through, taste, adjust seasoning, and spread over the cabbage.
Top with marinara or other store bought pasta sauce. I like this organic one from Aldi. Only good ingredients, in glass not metal, and affordable! Of course, you could make your own.
Finally, top with shredded cheese if you like.
Bake just long enough that the cheese melts. If you can, cool before serving so it is less juicy.
Italian Sausage Casserole with Cabbage
Ingredients
- 1/2 head cabbage, chopped
- 2 onions, chopped
- 6 cloves minced garlic
- 2 T preferred cooking fat
- salt and pepper to taste
- 3 lbs Italian sausage
- OR
- 3 lbs ground meat (pork is good, but any meat can work)
- 2 T fennel seeds, optional but recommended
- 2 T Italian seasoning
- 1 T garlic powder OR 3-5 more cloves garlic, minced
- 1 T each salt and pepper, or to taste
- 1 jar pasta sauce
- 2 C shredded cheese of choice
Instructions
- Melt fat in a large skillet, Dutch oven, or stock pot. Sauté onions until very soft and brownish. Add the garlic and cabbage. It will look like a lot of cabbage, but it will cook down! Cover and continue to cook, stirring occasionally, until cabbage is also very soft. If it starts to stick, add a tablespoon of water and cover.
- When the cabbage mixture is soft, season with salt and pepper to taste and spread in a baking dish, such as a 9×13" pan.
- Preheat oven to 350° F.
- In a dry skillet, toast the fennel seeds if using. Spread them in the hot skillet for 2-3 minutes. When they are a little bit brown and smell fragrant, they are ready.
- Add all the pork to the skillet and break it up so it browns in crumbly pieces. While it cooks, add the Italian seasoning and garlic or garlic powder. When the meat is cooked, add salt and pepper to taste. Spread it over the cabbage in the baking dish.
- Spread the pasta sauce over the top of the sausage. Sprinkle with cheese and bake at 350° F until the cheese is melted and bubbly. Cool before serving.
Make Italian Sausage Casserole Your Way!
You can easily alter this casserole to suit. Here are some ideas:
- Increase or decrease the seasonings. Taste the cabbage mixture and the meat mixture after cooking to adjust.
- If you like your food a little spicier, add some red pepper flakes!
- Use different meats.
- Add other veggies– mushrooms sound good! Cook them with the other veggies (or the meat) so you don’t end up with a lot of extra liquid!
- You could use something other than cabbage. Riced cauliflower would work. If you aren’t avoiding grains, pasta would be the obvious choice. If you don’t want pasta but are fine with potatoes, that would be a different twist.
- The cheese is wonderful, and seems to belong on a casserole with Italian flavors. However, it is not necessary. Leave it out if you are dairy free, or use a cheese substitute.
- If your dish is deep enough, try a layer of ricotta in between the cabbage and meat layers. For GAPS, use kefir cheese or GAPS cream cheese.
