Sausage, Kale, & Gruyère Pretzel Bread Crostini
Weekend food!!!
Let’s get after it.
If you’re a vaguely irresponsible person like me, then you know all too well that the weekend actually starts on Thursday, not Friday. As in — Thursday at 5pm? WEEKEND. Friday is a filler day. A place holder. A work day where no actual work gets done.
So what better way to celebrate the un-official start of the un-official weekend then with bomb-ass crostini, some beer, and a few bad decisions?
Sounds about right to me.
What’s great about this pretzel bread crostini is that it freezes incredibly well, so don’t be shy about making a huge-ass batch just for you, you and your man, you and your woman, whoever! While crostini is generally primed for entertaining (and this one is no exception) sometimes you just want to make a splashy appetizer for no damn reason, and this version is for those times. You can make a monster serving, eat what you can, then freeze the rest to be reheated for another time.
It’s simple, efficient, and delicious, just like life should be.
All you need are 7 little ingredients to pull this together, and the cooking is somehow even simpler. It all starts with a hunk of pretzel bread, which should be readily available at your local store. If you can’t find pretzel buns or rolls to slice up for this, a standard baguette will work too, so don’t stress! Improv is important in the kitchen. From there all you need are a few casings of sausage — chorizo? sweet Italian? chicken sausage? Take your pick! — onions, kale, a lemon, some garlic, and gruyère!
It’s a compact combo of goods, but together they pack a serious punch.
The sausage, kale, and onions are cooked together in one skillet with the aid of lemon and garlic, and once that’s ready simply top this mixture over lightly toasted pretzel bread slices, crown with tons of cheese, and bake! Compiling the crostini is admittedly a bit tedious, but the end results are worth the marginal effort — Savory, cheesy, tangy? YES. All the flavors, all in one bite.
When dealing with the kale it’s important you really chop/tear the crap out of your kale leaves, plus discard of any stems — As a guideline you want the kale bits to be proportionate to the size of your bread, so keep that in mind. Other than that, this crostini doesn’t require much thinking, so party on!
It is Thursday, after all 🙂 xo
Sausage, Kale, & Gruyère Pretzel Bread Crostini
Ingredients:
- 6 oz pretzel bread, sliced
- 12 oz sausage
- 1/2 cup yellow onion, diced
- 5 oz kale, chopped/torn, with stems removed
- 1 1/2 tsps crushed or minced garlic
- 1 lemon, juiced
- 1 cup shredded gruyère cheese (or more if you’d like!)
Directions:
- Pre-heat oven to 400F.
- On baking sheet toast the sliced pretzel bread for 2-3 minutes until just beginning to brown, then remove. Keep oven heated.
- Meanwhile, cut the ends of each sausage casing and squeeze out the filling into an un-greased skillet. Slowly cook sausage over medium-low heat until no pink parts remain, stirring as needed (~10 minutes). Discard of any rendered fat by draining into a paper towel-lined bowl.
- Once the sausage has been cooked and the fat has been drained, stir in the onion, kale, garlic, and lemon juice, then cover skillet and allow all ingredients to simmer until the kale has cooked down,~10 minutes. Again stir occasionally.
- When ready, evenly top each slice of toasted pretzel bread with a heaping tablespoon of the sausage/kale mixture, then crown with gruyère cheese. Bake in oven for 4-5 minutes until the cheese has melted, then serve immediately!
so good!
