Sausage and Sweet Potato Hash

Mmm... Sausage and Sweet Potato Hash - an awesome alternative to bacon and eggs for breakfast!

So last night was the end of Daylight Savings Time.  With an extra hour to lay around in bed this morning, my mind started to think about what delicious concoction I could come up with for breakfast.  I had a few large sweet potatoes and a bulb of fennel.  On a whim last night I defrosted a pound of pastured pork breakfast sausage.  Here’s what my half awake brain came up with…

Ingredients:

• 1 pound of sweet potatoes, peeled and diced into 1/4 inch cubes
• 3 Tablespoons pastured butter, divided
• 1/2 red onion, sliced thin
• 3 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 fennel bulb, diced into 1/4 inch pieces
• 5 ounces of baby Portabella mushooms, sliced
• 1 pound pastured pork breakfast sausage, bulk or casings removed
• 1 teaspoon Italian herb blend
• Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

What to do:

Melt 2 Tablespoons of butter in a large saute pan over medium heat.  Add the sweet potatoes and toss to cover in butter.  Spread them in a single layer and cover the pan for 5 minutes.  Adjust heat to keep the potatoes from burning, but you do want a nice brown color on them.  After 5 minutes or so, flip the potatoes around in the pan to brown the other sides, covering and stirring every few minutes (about 12 minutes total from the time you added the potatoes to the pan).

While to potatoes are cooking, brown the sausage in a separate pan, breaking it into little pieces.  Once browned, drain the extra fat and set the meat aside.

Once the potatoes are browned, add the remaining vegetables (onion through mushrooms) and the other 1 Tablespoon of butter to the saute pan.  Continue to saute, stirring every few minutes until the vegetables are cooked through (about 7-8 minutes).  Add the sausage to the pan along with the Italian herbs.  Saute until the sausage is warmed through.  Season with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste.

Although we ate the hash as is, it would also be delicious with a fried egg on top!

Yield 4 servings (but the 2 of us finished it off in one sitting!).

This recipe was shared at Kelly the Kitchen Kop, Food Renegade, and The Nourishing Gourmet.