sausage and cabbage skillet: your new favorite meal.

FRIENDS.  I am about to make your life so, so good.

What if I told you I had a recipe for the cheapest, easiest, quickest, tastiest, most veggie-filled dish your kids will ever love?  How much would you pay for something like that?  $100? $200? (Can you tell I was a telemarketer for a while?)  Well, today, I'm letting my golden recipe go for just three easy intallments of zero The Bucks.

In all seriousness, my claims are not inflated.  This is one of our favorite meals, and every last kid in the place loves it, including the pickiest eaters.  It involves two cheap ingredients, a few spices and one pan. Prep is nonexistent, and cleanup is nothing.  Ready to jump in?

Sausage and Cabbage Skillet
Total cook time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:
1 bag coleslaw mix* ($1.50 - $3 at Walmart)
1 lb ground pork sausage (any kind - we love mild or Italian) ($2 - $3 at Walmart)
Seasonings of your choice - I use 1-2 tsp salt, 1-2 tsp garlic powder, a dash of dried minced onion, and some pepper, all to taste

Directions:
Heat a large skillet over medium heat (I prefer my 12" cast iron skillet!) and brown your sausage until thoroughly cooked.  Drain sausage and place in a large bowl, leaving the fat in the pan.  (If there's not much fat, add a little cooking oil to the pan, to total about 2 tablespoons or thereabouts).

Add the coleslaw to the pan, season with your favorite seasonings, and sautee until wilted and warm, but still crunchy (5-7 minutes).  Add to the bowl with the sausage, toss together, and serve.

*You can use any coleslaw mix.  We switch it up, sometimes using regular coleslaw, other times using broccoli slaw, and other times using a "Super Blend" sold at Walmart that has Napa cabbage, shredded brussels sprouts, kale, and other shredded yummies.  In fact, because we double this recipe when I make it, I often use a couple different kinds at once.  The kids like them all.  The broccoli slaw is the crunchiest option, and the regular coleslaw ends up the softest, if that helps.

This was made with broccoli slaw and Power Blend, and mild pork sausage.

A quick note:  This is a very low-carb meal, so I often like to serve it with something easy on the side for the kids.  Regardless of what current diet fads tell you, growing and developing bodies need fat, protein and healthy carbohydrates at each meal.  Milk is pretty high in carbs, so I sometimes don't sweat it too much, but my biggest kids prefer water with their meals, and they have the highest calorie needs anyway, so I will try to figure out how to get easy carbs into them when I serve this.  An apple or some bread and butter are easy peasy options.