I was abroad for Memorial Day this year, but my family had a great time without me, doing a backyard cookout. It sounded like a very fun time, and now… I have a grill! Which I look forward to using this Summer. I’m digressing. The point of this story is that when I go back, there were some leftover ingredients to use. Some unused sausages, some tomatoes, and some mozzarella balls. I found some frozen spinach while digging around in my freezer. In addition to the marinara sauce we got for another night, that added up to a lot of random ingredients that I don’t eat much and don’t always . But I will always look for a way to use up ingredients! I found this skillet bake and thought it sounded like a perfect throw-it-all-together sort of meal. I bought some gnocchi and used everything up!
I added some chopped tomatoes to this, not included in the recipe specifically, and that is the beauty of a recipe like this. You can add whatever you have on hand. It came together in 20 minutes, 10 of which were spent sitting on the couch. I cleaned out so many half-used random ingredients. What a dream.
I’m sorry if this is a boring post, it’s because it only took 20 minutes to make this! I’m trying to stretch 20 minutes of my life and the 10 minutes of eating it into a couple hundred words!
This was a good way to ease myself back into cooking, honestly. I’ve been sick since coming back from my trip, and then my mom was handling cooking and meals for the few days after I got back. But when you’re coughing up a lung, this is still an easy meal to make. And it has some veggies and nutrition while also being very comforting. A perfect sick food.
I know my dedicated audience is all still catching up on my travel log posts, so I’ll keep this one short. I don’t have much more to say about it anyways. It’s just pretty tasty!
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PinIngredients
- 2 1/2 – 3 cups of your favorite marinara sauce
- 16 ounces gnocchi
- 1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
- 12 ounces (4) chicken sausages, cut into bite-sized pieces
- 4–6 cups baby spinach, or 10 ounces frozen chopped spinach, slightly thawed
- 7 ounces fresh mozzarella cheese
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350F
- Heat 1 1/2 tablespoons of olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add chopped sausage and cook for 5 to 7 minutes, until the meat is cooked through. Add marinara sauce and heat for a minute. Add spinach and fold it into the sauce. The fresh spinach should start wilting in 30 seconds, and the frozen spinach should break up.
- Add gnocchi to the pan and stir until combined. Top with chunks of mozzarella cheese. Put the skillet in the oven and bake for 10 to 12 minutes until the cheese is melting and slightly browned at the edges.
Notes
Adapted from Simply Recipes