This hearty and flavorful baked white beans dish with Italian sausage makes for a great dinner and even better leftovers. Serve this dish with some warm bread and a salad for a full & satisfying meal!!
Beans are part of the Mediterranean way of eating. We cook them in soups, stews, salads, dips and even bake them:). In my native country of Albania we love serving beans dishes with pickled veggies and salads.
I love cooking beans in the Instant Pot like in this Albanian dish called fasule, I love cooking pinto beans, red beans and even rice with black beans. In summer time, we even use Lima beans to make a beans salad. And of course living in Miami, I have to cook Cuban black beans (my way).
Ingredients
This is not a complicated dish to cook, even though there are plenty of ingredients involved. A lot of them are seasonings like salt, pepper, oregano, harissa powder and thyme. So if you stock lots of seasonings, the grocery list narrows down quite a bit.
- white beans (14 ozs) – I tend to use dry beans but if you prefer to use canned, I’ll include instructions in the recipe card so you can adjust.
- 16 ozs Italian sausage (about 4-5 sausages)
- 2 yellow onions
- 2 bell peppers
- 1 jalapeño or red chili or any spicy pepper of you choice
- 2 carrots or about 7-8 baby carrots
- 1 beefsteak tomato
- 1 can of tomato sauce (15 ozs)
- olive oil
- garlic cloves
- Seasonings: sea salt, black pepper, oregano, thyme, harissa powder, bay leaves
- 8 ozs chicken broth
- fresh parsley
Let’s make baked beans!
To avoid using a lot of pots, I tend to use a Dutch oven that is shaped more like a braiser.
I usually start the process the night before, soak the beans in water, remove any impurities by inspecting them. Next day, I rinse the beans and then cook them with just water either in a pressure cooker or a soup pot until they are soft. Usually I set the pressure cooker for 30-35 minutes.
Drain the beans when cool to handle, set them aside.
Do some prep work, chop onions, mince garlic and chop peppers, carrots, jalapeño etc.
Add olive oil in the Dutch oven in medium heat, cut sausages in bite size pieces and cook them until brown. Remove the sausages with a slotted spoon, add them to a plate.
Then add onions and garlic to the same pot. Saute onions and garlic. When onions are cooked down and look translucent, add peppers, jalapeño and carrots. Continue sauteing all veggies together.
At this point add the sausages back in with diced tomato, add beans too and mix well. Pour chicken stock and tomato sauce, add seasonings and mix really well. Let cook in the stovetop for about 20 minutes. In the meantime preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Add Dutch oven with the beans in the oven, let bake for about 30 minutes. Let cool a bit before serving.
Some pictures from the cooking process
Sometimes pictures are worth more than words, so just glancing at these step by step pictures will make the whole process easier for you to follow. Either way, let me know in comments if you have any questions!!
Baked white beans with Italian sausage
Equipment
- 1 braiser
Ingredients
- 14 ozs white beans dry
- 16 ozs Italian sausage about 4-5 sausages
- 3 tbsps olive oil
- 2 yellow onions
- 3 garlic cloves
- 2 bell peppers any color
- 1 jalapeño or red chili or any spicy pepper of your choice
- 2 carrots or about 7-8 baby carrots
- 1 beefsteak tomato
- 15 ozs tomato sauce about 1 can
- 2 bay leaves
- 1 cup fresh Italian parsley
- 0.5 tsp harissa powder
- 1 tbsp oregano
- 0.5 tsp thyme
- 1 tsp sea salt adjust to taste
- 0.5 tsp black pepper adjust to taste
- 8 ozs chicken broth or vegetable broth
Instructions
- Inspect beans for impurities, remove any small rocks or broken pieces. Rinse and add to a bowl with water so beans can soak over night.
- Next day, rinse beans add to pressure cooker or instant pot. Cover with water. Close lid, pressurize and cook on high for 30-35 minutes. Let the device depressurise naturally. Strain beans and let cool in the strainer.
- Cut sausages in bite size pieces. Add some olive oil to a braiser or Dutch Oven. Turn heat on medium and once oil is shimmery, add sausage pieces to the pot. Brown on all sides for few minutes stirring occasionally. Remove with a slotted spoon and set aside.
- While sausages are browning, chop onions and mince garlic. Dice the carrots, peppers and the jalapeño or chili pepper. Set aside. Blend or dice the tomato, your choice. Finely chop the parsley and gather the seasonings.
- Once you have removed the sausages from the braiser, add onions and garlic. Add more olive oil if needed. Saute the onions and garlic until volume goes down.
- Add carrots, peppers and jalapeño to the pot. Continue stirring and sauteing all the veggies together until soft.
- Add sausages back to pot and mix thoroughly with veggies. Add beans at this point too. Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees F.
- Finally start adding diced or blended tomato, tomato sauce, chicken stock (or veggie stock), bay leaves, oregano, thyme, sea salt, black pepper and some fresh parsley. Reserve 1-2 tbsps of the fresh parsley as garnish.
- Mix everything well, taste and adjust for salt. Place braiser in the oven and bake for 20 minutes covered, then lower temperature to 350 and bake uncovered to 10-15 minutes. Let cool for about 15 minutes before serving.
- Garnish with parsley before serving. Optional – drizzle olive oil and red wine vinegar over each plate as desired. Enjoy:)
Notes
- If using dry beans, remember that you have to soak them the night before.
- Instead of using 2 regular carrots, I often use 7-8 baby carrots because I have them handy more time than not, plus they’re already peeled. Saves some prep time.
- Just because I’m using Italian sausage doesn’t mean this is an Italian dish. I cook a lot of Mediterranean style meals because I grew up in the Mediterranean.
- Store leftovers in an airtight container in the refrigerator for 3-4 days. Reheat leftovers with some olive oil in a skillet or in the microwave. Add few tablespoons of water if dish has gotten too thick.
Nutrition Label
Nutrition
Adding acidity to balance flavors
As it’s common in many Mediterranean countries, we love adding some olive oil and red wine vinegar over the beans in our own plate. This step is optional as I understand it’s an acquired taste.
We also make salads with pickled veggies like cauliflower, green tomatoes, red peppers etc and those salads are drizzled with olive oil. At the end the plate has a mix of olive oil and pickled juice, that is perfect to add over the beans!! Again, skip this if not your taste:).
Don’t forget to add some sourdough bread, whole wheat bread or homemade bread to dip into this dish and absorb all the flavors. Yum!!
If you would like to save this recipe for later, please pin any of the pictures from this post to your boards in Pinterest so you can easily retrieve the recipe later on.
Other Mediterranean style dishes
Here are some additional Mediterranean style dinners:
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