June was extremely hot here. In fact, it went on record as being the second hottest June ever for my fair city. In an effort to keep the heat out of the kitchen, we’ve been grilling and making lots of salads. Like every summer, we try something new on the grill to expand our grilling repertoire. This summer it was Cooking en Papillote (pah-pee-YOHT) or cooking in parchment. Our first dish was this Italian Sausage with Vegetables.
This dish is a combination of Italian sausage, vegetables and herbs sealed in parchment paper then cooked on a medium heat grill. The parchment pouches are placed on a sheet pan, then set on the grate. (See picture below.) The sausage and vegetables steam in their own juices and the flavors are incredible. What a perfect one pot meal! I couldn’t believe how easy it was to prepare and even easier to cleanup afterwards. The cleanup was “discard the parchment paper” and wash the knives.
An Èn Papillote with sausage, an assorted of vegetables and herbs in a parchment pouch, baked for 30 minutes on the grill or in an oven. The result is delicious!
*See Kitchen Notes for more information or related links.
- ½ large sweet pepper, chopped
- ½ small onion, chopped
- 5 garlic cloves, coarsely chopped
- 6 large white mushrooms, halved, then cut each half into 3 to 4 wedges
- 1 medium summer squash, cut into bite size pieces
- ½ tsp. dried oregano
- ½ tsp. dried sage
- Olive oil – *garlic-infused if you have it
- Salt and pepper
- 2 Italian sausages, remove from casings and torn into pieces (or 1/2 pound bulk Italian sausage)
- 8 large green olives, sliced
- ½ cup corn
- 1 Tbsp. butter
- Prepare grill for medium heat. (We use a gas grill so we preheat for about 10 minutes.)
- Place the first 6 ingredients into a large bowl. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Drizzle with a little olive oil and toss to coat.
Cut two large sheets of parchment paper. Each sheet should be large enough to hold half of the ingredients.
- Place one sheet on a large sheet pan, opened.
- On half of the paper create a bed with the meat from one of the sausages. Top with half of the vegetables, half the olive slices, and half the corn.
- Cut ½ Tbsp. butter into 3 pieces and place on top.
Fold the top half of the parchment over the sausage and vegetables. Twist the ends to create a pouch. Try not to leave opening in the folds where steam can escape. Tightly tie each end with string.
- Repeat with the second sheet of parchment and other half of the ingredients.
- Place the sheet pan with the two pouches on the grill. Close grill.
- Maintain grill temperature between 350° F and 400° Cook for 30 minutes. (If your grill has a hotter “side”, then rotate pan halfway through.)
- Remove from grill.
Serve over a blend of wild and brown rice*
Sausage – Use a mild to hot Italian sausage or a Mexican chorizo. It’s important to put the sausage on the bottom. Being closest to the heat it becomes crispy and almost caramelizes. The sweet crispiness and the flavor of the sausage is one of the things that really make this dish as good as it is.
Vegetables – There are many different vegetables that work with this dish. Most of the time I just use what’s in the refrigerator. However, it always needs the garlic and onion and I love a nice summer squash. Go for different colors when you can.
Cut the vegetables in varying sizes based on how fast or slow they cook. Summer quash pieces should be cut relatively large in order to keep them from overcooking and getting mushy. However, winter squash could be cut into smaller pieces. Since I love to bite into a cooked mushroom, I leave them pretty big as well. Onion and bell pepper are smaller and the olives work nicely as thin slices so they can distribute throughout the meal once cooked and transferred to a plate.
Rice – I buy a wild/brown rice blend in bulk at my local co-op and I love it. It consists of several varieties of black and brown rice and it makes a great complement to this sausage and veggies dish; however, brown rice or white rice would probably work just as well. You could also make your own blend by combining 4 to 6 wild and brown rice varieties. Click here for Two Methods of Cooking Brown Rice.
Cooking in parchment method – Cooking in parchment is SO easy and so little cleanup! We normally cook this on the grill, but it could easily be baked in the oven @ about 375° F (190° C).
If you enjoyed this ‘en papillote dish, here is another vegetarian ‘en papillote dish you might enjoy: Stacked Vegetables en Papillote
This recipe for Sausage and Vegetables en papillote was featured in the Huffington Post article: Dinner in A Bag: 14 Recipes for Cooking in Parchment, April 5, 2013.
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It looks great and taste will be yummy too. Thanks for sharing.
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This sounds good.
Oh I love love your addition of the green olives, they are my favorite:-) This would be a perfect mix of flavors! Take care, Terra
Gosh, I need to broaden my horizons…I only think of cooking fish en papillote…and all your different ideas look fantastic. I’m going to have to try your veggie stacks, too…yum!
Parchment paper is one of the best cooking invention in my opinion. It is very useful and saves a lot of time when it comes to cleaning after. This is a good idea of cooking. Thank you for sharing the idea, MJ! 🙂
THAT SOUNDS LIKE THE PERFECT WAY TO TREAT OURSELVES TO A “NEW” BBQ DISH. LOVE IT MJ.
Oh I’ve never tried cooking veggies like this!Sounds like a perfect idea for these hot summer days and it also seals the flavors!Love the use of sausages in there too!YUMM….
I like your idea of cooking in parchment pouches. I have cooked vegetables and fish together in foil but have used parchment only for lining juicy things like squash coated with maple syrup. the colour ful vegetables really looks wonderful. I have not yet adapted to the taste of wild rice but soon getting over there.
Thanks for the comment. This recipe en papillote looks awesome too! Looking forward to going through some other things on your blog
Such beautiful colours MJ – a wonderful summery dish, and the rice looks delectable too. I never tried cooking anything “en papillote”… I heard it was difficult to get right… I must investigate it and expand my own repertoire!
Oh Charles – there is nothing difficult about it! I’ve cooked 5 meals in parchment in the past two weeks and they have all turned out perfect! You know me – if it’s not easy, I probably won’t be doing it. 🙂 Thanks!
The dish sounds delicious!
http://juegodesabores.blogspot.com.es/
I have cooked in aluminum foil and banana leaves, never tried it in Parchment paper. looks wonderful. Sure I will try this method.
You know, I love the “en papillote” methoe – but I don’t use it nearly enough. I love the way the flavors steam and mingle together. This is a fantastic dish to celebrate summer!
Just beautiful!
And so healthy!
En papillotte is simply the best solution to preserve real taste and flavours!
Not fair as I’m French! LOL
And wild rice to top it all!
You are an angel!
Thanks Robert! I always thought French cooking to be difficult, but this French cooking certainly isn’t! I loved it!
Ooh, this sounds so good! Will definitely have to try it with sausage and veggies. Thanks so much for popping by my blog. Will be exploring yours!
Hi Mj, Thanks for stopping by. This method of cooking sounds healthy and easy clean up. Here in Kerala, we have so much of plantain/banana plants in the backyard, the banana leaves are used instead of the parchment paper (started years ago) it sort of has a non sticky effect…and fish is usually baked or grilled in it. If you ever chance to visit Kerala, do not forget to have “meen pollichathu” in plantain leaves…the mention of it is bringing nostalgic memories of my grandma’s kitchen. The apricot jam looks so yummy and great pic….I have missed a lot from your wonderful space…so just catching up with it. Have a great summer.
Thanks Nisa! I would love to be able to find some banana leaves and cook in them. I’m so hooked on this method of cooking that I’d love to try new types of wraps. I have some corn husks in the pantry that I’ll be working with soon. The meen pollichathu sounds wonderful!
Now I want to try cooking in parchment! This looks delicious, MJ, and I recently discovered some new organic stores near me which carry similar blends of wild rice, so this post has inspired me to pick some up. I’m popping over to Sarah’s blog to check out the challenge…
I have never tried en papillote method to prepare food. This looks so fresh, and delicious.
Never tried this kind of cooking and pairing with brown rice is simply fantastic!
Cooking in parchment is such a healthy and flavour retaining method! Your choice of ingredients sounds fantastic too. I have only baked fish this way but every time I did I was amazed at the results.
That vegetable will be great with grilled meats, Yum!
I’ve always wanted to cook with parchment paper pouches. I definitely need to give it a try with this awesome recipe!
This sounds like a really healthy recipe. And low maintenance too :-). Thank you for sharing! I should try this en Papillote technique some day, the name sounds so cute :-).
Have a wonderful week!
I’ve never cooked in parchment before, but it looks like a good way to try and beat this crazy summer heat! I’m going to have to try it.
Cooking in parchment is great! I haven’t done it in quite awhile – several years – and you’ve reminded me of how easy it is. It’s a great way to cook fish. And, as you’ve demonstrated, sausage! Really nice recipe – thank you.
Italian Sausage with Vegetables ‘En Papillote that sure looks tasty, i am going to try that. yummy!
This is definitely something I want to try! We have been grilling a lot too, or doing whatever we can to stay cool! I love the olives in the mix .. sounds really good!
What a gorgeous papillote of veggies and Italian sausage. I love the addition of corn! I know this had to smell like the italian sausages hero’s around here, when you open the paper. I could wear that smell! llol
🙂 I’m with you! I love the smell and the flavor of Italian sausage! Italian and chorizo are my favorites! Thanks for your comments!
The dish sounds like a winner but I really like the clean up is so easy! Just perfect to make after a long day at work.
Yesterday I saw one blogger making this and decide to give it a try (but haven’t tried yet). I see this method is super versatile with different kinds of ingredients and I’m loving it! Such a healthy delicious method we should utilize more! Thank you so much for another inspiring recipe!
I love cooking fish en papillote – I find the flavours permeate beautifully – but have not experimented much beyond that. I really like how you use the sausage here – torn into pieces as part of the larger assortment of vegetables rather than as the main event. Giving the meal that distinctive spicy flavour and protein without overwhelming. Great inspiration and, as you note, hassle/mess free – yay! Your rice photo is so lovely MJ – it just jumps off the page.
Thanks Kelly! I think I’m going to try fish next. It seems to be a common method of cooking fish and I can now see why. Everything stays so moist and you don’t lose any of the flavor.
Awesome job! Its been so hot here, too, and I have been trying to grill everything I can (even bread!!!) so I loved how fast and easy this recipe was – and such astounding results from everyone!
Thanks Jenni! Please post how to bake bread on a grill! I would love to do that but being a bad baker, I’m a little nervous about grilling bread! 🙂
I love cooking with pp, easy clean and moist results. thanks fro sharing!
This is a great dish and a really good response to the challenge. I often roast sausages with vegetables in my oven. Doing it en papillote is a tasty alternative and one I’ll be sure to try.
Thanks John! I’ve also roasted sausage and veggies in the oven and I actually like the en papillote method better. Nothing dries out and the flavors really combine with each other so much more!
Hi MJ. This is something I have always wanted to try. Great idea for the grill, if I can only learn to fold it properly myself. It has been hot here too and who wants to heat up the kitchen, not me. Hope you have a wonderful weekend and stay cool.
I often cook fish en Papillote, but I’ve forgot to do it with vegetables: A great mistake as the small packages preserve the taste so well.
This delicious dish would have people pounding at your door my friend 😀
It looks awesome!
Cheers
Choc Chip Uru
I have cooked in foil and banana leaf…never in parchment. I have been meaning to try this method of cooking since I have seen in on several cooking shows. Loved your interpretation of the challenge! The meal looks full of color and hearty… I would love to dig into it. 🙂 Have a wonderful weekend my friend. ~ Ramona
I was introduced to this method of cooking by Masterchef Australia sometime back but haven’t seen anyone cook in papillote anywhere in the blogosphere until now. I’m very impressed. This is one of those ideal ways to prepare food during hot summer days like these. The sausage and vegetables look very colourful and delicious as usual. Came to think of it now, we have a similar way of preparing food… in banana leaves. 😀
Have a great weekend, MJ!
Thanks Rathai! I’d like to try cooking in banana leaves next!
I loved this cooking methode too it was really quick and easy and the flavors were intense.
I love all the colors and flavors your recipe has. I am looking forward to trying a vegetable version