Main Meal

A 15 minute meal that will cost you less than $5 to prepare. This BBQ Smoked Sausage and Couscous is a weeknight family meal that everyone will enjoy!

School is about to start and that has had me working on a big list of easy meals that I can get on the table quickly. Between homework, extra curricular classes and some kind of family time our nights will be jam packed soon. Not to mention nighttime routines like baths, lunch packing and setting clothes out for the next day. 

I need some super easy meals that will get everyone full without spending an hour in the kitchen prepping and cooking. This recipe is one of my go to meals when I haven’t planned something for dinner because even if the sausage is frozen it comes together really quickly.

Once you have made it a time or two, you won’t even need a recipe! This BBQ smoked sausage and couscous recipe is versatile, easy and cheap. 

Affiliate Links are used in this post. A small commission may be paid to me at no extra cost to you and that helps to support this page. Please see my disclosures page for additional information.

BBQ Smoked Sausage And Couscous

My little boy started exclaiming “a hot dog, a hot dog” today when he saw his plate on the table this evening. He loves hot dogs (and even though this isn’t a hot dog that just shows you how easy this will be to get your kids to eat!) It combines saucy sausage with cheesy couscous. What’s not to like? 

What You Need

• Smoked Sausage
• Parmesan Couscous
• Chicken Broth 
• Pale Ale Mustard Based BBQ Sauce
• Parsley (For Garnish – Optional)

Directions

Start by slicing the sausage in about 1 inch pieces. 

Pour 2/3 cup chicken broth into a skillet over medium heat. Add in the sausage.

Allow the sausage to absorb/cook down almost all of the liquid and the sausage to brown slightly. 

Once almost all of the liquid is absorbed, add 3 tablespoons of bbq sauce to the sausage and simmer for about 5 minutes on low.  The small amount of chicken broth combined with the BBQ sauce will create a thick glaze. 

Meanwhile, prepare your couscous according to the package directions. 

To serve, spoon couscous onto the plate and serve the sausage on top. Sprinkle with a little parsley. 

I usually serve this with a side salad or tonight, we ate it with a bag of frozen green peas that I warmed while cooking the BBQ smoked sausage and couscous. 

Why I Love This Meal

BBQ smoke sausage and couscous is a meal that I have been making for about 6 years now. I love it for several reasons and I will share those with you! These little tricks may make this a staple meal in your house too!

• My whole family loves it! All the kids, teens to a 1 year old love it. No one ever complains and they always eat their meal. 
• It is so versatile. Don’t have Parmesan Couscous? Use regular. No chicken broth? Saute the sausage in olive oil or a dry white wine. No Pale Ale Mustard BBQ sauce? Use a traditional bbq sauce.  I have done all of these & it is always still yummy.
• I always have the ingredients! Just about every time I go to the store I grab a box of couscous and a rope of sausage. So I always have the stuff to make this simple supper.
• Inexpensive. The cost to make this meal is low and makes for a budget friendly family meal. Read more about this below. 

Cost of BBQ Smoked Sausage and Couscous Meal

Aside from the ease of preparation and the fact that my kids will eat this without complaints, the cost is my next favorite thing. Since this meal uses just a few simple ingredients, you can keep your costs down while feeding your family. 

Smoked Sausage – $2.50
Couscous – $1.55
Pale Ale BBQ – $3.19 At Kroger (.319 for 3 tablespoons)
Chicken Broth –  $1.35 32 ounces ( .22 for 2/3 cup)

Total: $4.589 or about $1.15 per serving 

This recipe feeds our family of four. We do have two small children at our normal dinner table so they are not big eaters but my husband is a big eater and it works out to serve our family well. 

If my husband’s teen girls are over, I will double the recipe. 

Favorite Cooking Necessities

 

Other Easy Family Friendly Meals You Will Love

10 minute Black Bean Tacos

1 Rotisserie Chicken, 5 Lunches

3 Ingredient Slow Cooker Pulled Pork

Crack Chicken Puffs

Pimento Cheese Chicken Spaghetti

A creamy chicken spaghetti recipe that uses a tub of pimento cheese from the deli department to add and extra layer of cheesy goodness. Pimento cheese chicken spaghetti will give you the traditional tastes of baked spaghetti but elevated to the next level. 

Does your family have a few go to recipes that are used for special occasions? When I was growing up, my mom’s lasagna, manicotti and chicken spaghetti were always top picks for family birthday dinners and other special events. 

These go to casseroles are great because they feed a bunch, are relatively cheap and are crowd pleasers. As a mom of a blended family, our dinner table can have up to 7 people at it at any given time. So anything that makes everyone happy is a major accomplishment. 

My husband chose chicken spaghetti for our Saturday night dinner this week. So my mom’s chicken spaghetti came to mind. Her casserole is made with pimentos, bell pepper, cream soups and shredded cheese. Another popular variation on the dish is rotel chicken spaghetti which includes Velveeta and a can of Rotel. I have made both many times but I wanted something a little different. 

Not too long ago we went on a day date to a restaurant in a trendy area of our city. They had pimento cheese loaded fries and I had to try them. Those fries were amazing. Full of flavor and melty, cheesy goodness.

So when trying to come up with a spin on our traditional chicken spaghetti, pimento cheese chicken spaghetti seemed like a great choice. I mean if it works on French fries and bread, why not pasta? 

Affiliate Links are used in this post. A small commission may be paid to me at no extra cost to you and that helps to support this page. Please see my disclosures page for additional information.

Pimento Cheese Chicken Spaghetti Casserole

The pimento cheese chicken spaghetti was deliciously creamy and cheesy. Our kids from almost 2 years old to 18 all happily cleaned their plates.

And here is the best part. My husband said it was the best variation of chicken spaghetti that I had ever made. The kicker? He doesn’t think he like pimento cheese (insert evil laugh here!). 

Simplify the Prep

To make pimento cheese chicken spaghetti much easier, use the meat of a rotisserie chicken. Using a precooked chicken will drastically cut down on your prep time and make this easy enough for a weeknight meal. 

Another way to cut down on prep would be to use a pre-chopped, frozen seasoning blend of bell peppers. You could get the pepper and onion combo to really make this amazing but my husband despises onions so I skip those. 

I might be able to sneak pimento cheese into chicken spaghetti but I never sneak onions. It is a cardinal rule of our marriage. Plus he can find one onion speck in an entire casserole so it would never work even if I wanted to try. 

By using the pimento cheese, you also cut down on having to heat the cheeses together. When you make rotel chicken spaghetti, you have to melt down that Velveeta before putting it in the oven. Since the pimento cheese is already chopped small, it will melt enough when you add it to the hot spaghetti noodles. No need to warm on the stove before baking!

What Do You Need To Make Pimento Cheese Chicken Spaghetti?

To make this yummy baked spaghetti, you need just a few basic ingredients. 

• Rotisserie Chicken or 2-3 Chicken Breasts
•  12 ounce prepared Pimento Cheese 
•  3 Tablespoons Butter
•  Bell Pepper (and onion if you don’t have an onion hater like I do)
•  2 cans cream of something soup (you can totally sub whatever you have, cream of mushroom, celery or chicken would all be fine)
•  Cup of shredded cheese 
•  Box of Spaghetti noodles

Can I Freeze It?

Absolutely! Chicken spaghetti is a great casserole to freeze on a freezer cook day. You can also build up your freezer stash without a huge freezer cooking day by prepping one for dinner and one for the freezer without a ton of extra effort. 

To freeze, prep the pimento cheese chicken spaghetti all the way up until the baking point, but don’t bake it! I like to use disposable foil pans when making things for the freezer. 

This is what it looks like unbaked. Look at those little chunks of pimento cheese. Don’t worry that cheese melts down perfectly in the oven (in case you have some pimento cheese haters in your house too).

You can also line your glass pyrex dish with aluminum foil. Then spread the spaghetti mixture in the pan and freeze until firm (an hour or two). Once it is firm enough to pop out of the pan, wrap it well with additional foil. When it is time to thaw and bake, just unwrap and place it back into your pan.  

The leftovers warm up well in the microwave too! I just drizzle about a teaspoon of water over that top before warming to help prevent the microwave from drying the pasta out.