Easy One-Pan Dinner: Roasted Vegetables & Chicken Sausage
As much as we would all love to cook ourselves (and our families/roommates/friends/significant others) a nice dinner every night, sometimes it just doesn’t happen. Or maybe it never happens, because, well, life is busy. We go to work, we exercise, we hang out with friends and family, and we don’t always have time to make a delicious, healthy dinner.
Let’s change that.
Let’s gift ourselves just a little bit of time to make dinner. We’ll start with this easy one-pan meal of roasted vegetables and chicken sausage. It hits all the marks: quick, easy, healthy, delicious.
Quick & Easy
For this recipe, all you need to do to is chop up some vegetables and chicken sausage, toss it on a pan with olive oil and seasoning, and roast it in the oven. That is it, my friends. 20 minutes later you’ll have a steaming, healthy, delicious pile of roasted goodness and you’ll wonder why you didn’t do this sooner.
You are more than welcome to take the recipe below as is, but you can also customize it to your liking. I used chicken sausage with sweet potatoes, onion, red pepper, zucchini, broccoli, and black beans (AKA what I had in my refrigerator), but feel free to explore with your favorite veggies and protein – Brussels sprouts, corn, green beans, mushrooms, kale, eggs, chickpeas, turkey, tofu, etc. The sky’s the limit!!
Healthy
This meal is basically a plate full of vegetables and protein with some fat from the olive oil. It doesn’t get much cleaner than this!
Here are the highlights:
- Complex Carbohydrates digest slowly and provides your body with nutrients while it breaks down into blood glucose. They also offer fiber to help with gut health. Black beans and sweet potatoes are both great sources of complex carbs.
- Protein acts as the building blocks for bones and muscles and helps to build and repair tissues, which is why it is necessary to consume after a tough workout. Chicken sausage and black beans are offer good amounts of protein.
- Vegetables are naturally low in calories and high in nutrients like potassium, fiber, vitamin A, and vitamin C. It is generally recommended to eat about 5 cups of vegetables a day, so feel free to load up!
- Olive oil is full of fats with antioxidant and anti-inflammatory benefits and also helps protect against heart disease. Plus, olive oil adds fantastic flavor to the roasted vegetables.
Delicious
Personally, I love raw vegetables, but it’s amazing how tossing raw vegetables with a little bit of olive oil and roasting them in the oven can completely change their flavor profile… in the very best way. The variety of vegetables mixed with the chicken sausage help make this a super flavorful and delicious meal. I used cumin and cayenne for spices, but feel free to play around. Garlic and dried herbs would be excellent additions here.
There you have it. An easy one-pan dinner of roasted vegetables and chicken sausage that is quick, easy, healthy, and delicious! It doesn’t require a lot of time or planning, so you can easily whip this up and enjoy it after coming in from a chilly fall run.
The Recipe
Serves: 2-4 people Prep time: 10 minutes Cook time: 20 minutes
Ingredients:
- 2 chicken sausage links, sliced
- ¼ cup yellow onion, diced
- 1 sweet potato, diced
- 1 red pepper, diced
- 1 zucchini, sliced and quartered
- 1 crown broccoli, chopped
- 1 cup black beans
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- ½ teaspoon cumin
- ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
- Salt and pepper, as desired
Directions:
- Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Line one or two baking sheets with foil (depending on the size of your sheets and the amount of your vegetables).
- Spread vegetables on the pan, drizzle with olive oil and seasoning, and mix together.
- Place in the oven and roast for 20 minutes, stirring once halfway through, until vegetables are fully roasted.
- Divide into 2-3 portions and serve as is. Additional serving suggestions: toss with baby kale, serve over brown rice, add avocado, etc.
Notes:
- To make vegetarian: omit the chicken sausage and double the beans.
- Use this recipe as a starter, but feel free to play around with the vegetables, protein, and spices. There are so many possibilities!
Try this out and let us know what you think! Would love to hear how you customize.
