Smoky Potato, Onion and Pepper Skillet with Chicken Sausage
With Christmas around the corner, I am in full gift-buying, chocolate-melting, house-decorating mode.
But I’m mostly just dreaming about what I am going to cook on Christmas day…
It will just be me and Miles celebrating Christmas together out here in lonely California.
Ugh. We’ll probably have to go surfing, and open our gifts in the sunshine on our front porch, and drink iced coffees.
What kind of hell are we living in here?
No but seriously, I can not complain. If we have to be away from our families on Christmas, this is a pretty great alternative.
I’ve been thinking of different breakfast ideas for Christmas morning. Ideally, ones that do not take a lot of time, or even better… ones that you can make the night before.
This is California-style breakfast (really anything with avocado can be considered California style, am I right?), that can easily be started the night before and finished quickly the next morning. It can also be done all at once, and also makes a pretty excellent dinner as well.
Smoky Potato, Onion and Pepper Skillet with Chicken Sausage
Ingredients:
- 8 breakfast chicken sausage links (uncooked, casings removed)
- 1 Tbsp coconut oil
- 8-10 medium gold potatoes (Not fingerling, but not the huge russet ones. They should be just smaller than your fist) *Poke a few holes with a fork, and microwave them for 3 minutes. Cut each potato in to 6-8, 1-2 inch pieces
- 1 tsp smoked paprika
- 1 tsp chili powder
- 2 tsp cumin
- 1 tsp dried oregano
- 1 pinch red chili flakes or cayenne pepper
- 1/2 tsp fresh ground black pepper
- 1/2 tsp sea salt
- 1/2 yellow or white onion, diced
- 1 small green bell pepper, seeded and diced
- 2 cloves garlic, finely minced
- 4 eggs
- 1/2 cup chopped scallions
- hot sauce such as Cholula
- avocado slices to garnish
- optional: sour cream, cheddar cheese
Directions:
- *Preheat oven to 350 degrees if you do plan on completing the recipe all at once and eating these right away.
- In a large cast iron, or heavy pan, cook chicken sausages over medium high heat until done and golden brown, breaking them up as you go.
- Remove sausage from pan and let drain on a paper towel. Set aside.
- In hot pan, add coconut oil (usually chicken sausage doesn’t give you a lot of leftover fat in the pan, hence the coconut oil. If you decided to do pork sausage or bacon instead, then the coconut oil wouldn’t be necessary.) and let melt to coat the bottom of the pan. (Sausage bits in the bottom are encouraged).
- Add potatoes to hot pan (still over medium-high heat) shake to coat with oil.
- Sprinkle spices (paprika through sea salt from ingredient list above) on top of the potatoes.
- Continue to cook potatoes for 3 minutes without stirring, and then shake pan to coat with spices and to turn potatoes. The layer that was at the bottom should have gotten a little golden color.
- Cook potatoes for another 3 minutes without stirring, then shake pan after 3 minutes to stir potatoes. Potatoes should be covered in spices and getting crispy on the outside with a golden (and a little red) color.
- Add onion, peppers and garlic to pan, and shake pan to incorporate. Cook for 2 mins.
- Add sausage back into skillet.
- If you plan on waiting to serve the skillet, then stop here. Let it cool, and cover with foil. Set in fridge. (In the morning, preheat over to 350. Remove foil and cook for 25-30 mins or until potatoes are fork tender, then pick up on number 14 of the directions below)
- If you plan on eating right away, then just pop the skillet in the oven and continue to cook for 20 minutes or until potatoes are fork tender.
- Remove skillet from oven, and crack 4 eggs over the potatoes. Return to oven and cook for 10 minutes. Yolks will be just a little runny, so cook them longer if you want hard yolks.
- Remove from oven and top with scallions, hot sauce and avocado slices before serving.
