Mix and Match Recipes: Lazy Linguiça Leftovers
Mix and Match Recipes is a series on what we can achieve with our capsule pantry.
Executive summary: So much sausage, so little time to finish it all, but we made it (har har, get it?)
I’ve been a fan of Costco for many years — I appreciate their philosophy of low margins, treating their employees well, and curating/limiting the selection so that I have fewer decisions to make. My husband and I got our own Costco membership cards (instead of using our parents’) when we tied the knot after college, like a rite of passage into married life. And now I take my toddler once a week, as part of our routine, to grab pizza (beloved by my 5yo), hotdogs (beloved by the 2yo), and anything that happens to catch my eye (which somehow adds up to $100-$200 each time, but is understandable when I end up with 36 macaroons in one box). I usually walk past the sausage aisle without pausing long, as the package sizes are enormous, and unlike toilet paper, its rate of consumption around our home is not consistent. ;-) But one of the previous times we went, I mentally shrugged and threw a pack of 10 linguiça into the cart, each of which measures a foot long. This amount of sausage is not to be underestimated, especially when there are only two adults to work on it. I used some and froze some, but we are often squeezed for freezer space, so I soon decided we would make an effort to finish the 3lb pack off.
Costco is one of my happy places, but the package sizes are not congruent with a minimalist lifestyle … unless your version of minimalism is one in which you eat the same thing every day.
I usually default to kielbasa as my minimalist capsule pantry staple (see original post here), as I find its flavor to be the most versatile, but in this case, it was all about the linguiça (a spiced Portuguese sausage). Over the course of a couple weeks, I made six simple recipes largely using the ingredients I always have in my capsule pantry:
Roasted sausages and grapes: Sausages + grapes + olive oil + black pepper + balsamic vinegar drizzle. Serve with crusty bread.
Sausage zucchini skillet: Zucchini + onions + chickpeas + sausage + black pepper + herbs/spices (I used Trader Joe’s “sofrito seasoning”) + minced garlic (the only kind I use now is the frozen cubes from Trader Joe’s, as I don’t have time to peel and mince while the toddler loudly demands to be fed). Serve it with the Costco bread that no normal family can finish in a sitting.
Panzanella with sausage: Stale bread (e.g., the Costco loaf that keeps on giving) + cucumbers + tomatoes + mozzarella + sausage + olive oil + balsamic vinegar + black pepper + herbs/spices. Fresh basil would be nice, which I sometimes “substitute” with pesto (which of course also comes from Costco).
Sausage bean stew or soup: There are as many variations as there are beans. I usually serve this with rice.
Version 1: Chickpeas + sausage + onion + tomato + garlic + seasoning + a splash of red wine when we have a bottle open
Version 2: Black beans + sausage + onions + garlic + cumin + cayenne pepper
Version 3: Cannellini/white beans + sausage + onion + carrots + tomatoes + seasoning or pesto. I have a previous dedicated post on it here
Fried rice with sausage: Rice + sausage + carrots + peas + optional eggs + soy sauce + sesame oil + five spice powder + an optional dash of Sichuan pepper or chili crisp oil. There’s another version where I flavor it with pre-mixed curry powder (which I admit is not officially in my capsule pantry but currently lives in our spice drawer nonetheless).
Sausage tacos or quesadillas: Works with whatever protein I have on hand (e.g., beef, pork, chicken, fish, or shrimp) + bell peppers + onions + cumin + cayenne pepper. Top it off with shredded cheese + salsa + guac.
Panzanella before mixing the component ingredients together (bread, tomatoes, mozzarella, cucumbers, sausage, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, black pepper, herbs/spices)
With these recipes, I was able to knock out our oversized pack of linguiça so I could free up freezer space for other items (like the homemade dumplings we carted back from my parents’ place after winter break). These recipes are quick and simple (call it lazy, or call it efficient), and supported by my capsule pantry. To add even more flexibility, in almost every case, I see sausage and meatballs (or whatever other type of reconstituted ground meat) as mostly interchangeable. Costco is not the best place to shop for meal variety, as we did have a lot of linguiça over a short period of time, but an impulse buy once in a while is fine in my (recipe) book.