Instant Pot Recipe | Marinara Rice + Brats (2024)

This easy weekday dinner idea uses marinara sauce, jasmine rice, brats and fresh veggies. Made in the Instant Pot, our Marinara Rice + Brats recipe means dinner is served in 30 minutes or less.

Instant Pot Recipe | Marinara Rice + Brats

At times “the why” of making a meal is an interesting story all on its own. This is the story about marinara sauce versus Alfredo sauce. Stay with me for a minute, it’ll all make sense, I promise. See, two of our boys really love Alfredo sauce, the remaining son will eat it but doesn’t necessarily like it; the degree of his dislike came to a head a few days ago. We were having a family meal made with Alfredo sauce and as he was eating he looked at me said, “Dad, you know I really don’t like this sauce,” and I said something to the effect of, “What do you mean? You always eat Alfredo sauce… I thought you liked it”. Basically, he eats it because that’s what I made and he knows how much we dislike wasting food. But in the end, he would rather eat red sauces over Alfredo sauce any day of the week. Alrightly then duly noted. I knew this particular twin really likes Jasmine rice, and he really loves red pasta sauces; so I got to thinking, “Do marinara sauce and rice even go together? I wasn’t sure and of course, Google search was there to help a brotha’ out. Turns out rice and red sauces is “a thing” after all, who knew? Well, apparently quite a few people knew who went out of their way to keep me in the dark. Well, here is my take on adding Marinara sauce to rice and the results were, “Why haven’t I been doing this all along?”

And so it begins. I start with sautéeing some sweet Valdalia onions going with a little butter, sea salt, and freshly cracked black peppercorns. Lately, I have been on a caramelized onion kick, I can’t seem to get enough of them, and so, why not?

Quality ingredients are an essential part of any recipe and we love Land O Lakes!

My thinking is, the sweet Italian Sausage will be served with lots of onions, and the Marinara rice.

Have you ever tried Mid’s Marinara sauces? These guys are from the Midwest and they make a really good sauce.

I often sneak something green, leafy, and healthy into almost every meal, and these chopped collard greens were the perfect addition to this delicious weekday dinner. Turns out collard greens are packed with vitamin K and A and lots of other good stuff.

Lots of chopped garlic was added, I pan-fried the savory garlic with the collard greens and it was a pretty good look!

I am really looking forward to digging in the dirt this summer and planting lots of collards, and a variety of beneficial veggies!

I used the fresh mini tomatoes to give this simple recipe and bit of freshness, and the bright colors look delicious.

With a mix of freshly shredded Asiago and Provolone this dish with packed with lots of cheesy flavors.

Turns out the Instant Pot is the ideal rice-making-machine, from start to finish rice is cooked to perfection in 12-minutes!

Good food always starts with quality ingredients, and when you love to cook bringing it all together is the easy part.

This trio of extra toppings is our way of saying over the top is a good thing!

Marinara Rice + Brats

Ingredients:

• 2 cups Jasmine Rice
• 1 32-ounce Tomato Basil sauce
• 2 1/3 cup chicken stock
• 1 package Italian sausage
• 1 or 2 large sweet Vidalia onions, sliced
• 1/2 stick unsalted sweet cream butter
• 3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
• 2 1/2 cup Collard Greens, chopped
• 3-4 cloves of garlic
• 1/2 cup Asiago cheese, shredded
• 1/2 cup Provolone cheese, shredded
• 1/2 cup curly parsley
• 1 cup heirloom mini-tomatoes
• sea salt to taste
• freshly cracked black peppercorns to taste

Directions:

1. Prep the collard greens, onions, parsley, garlic, shred the cheeses and slice the tomatoes.
2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
3. In a large cast iron skillet add the sweet cream butter and a single tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil over med/high heat, when the butter is melted add the sliced sweet Vidalia onions. Allow the onions to soften, add the sweet Italian sausage on top and place the skillet in the oven for 45 minutes.
4. ProTip: Allow the sausage to get mostly done because you don’t want to cook the rice too early, rice does not like to wait around, when there is 15 minutes left of the timer begin preparing the rice.
5. Remove the lid from the Instant Pot and add the Jasmine rice, add the chicken stock until the liquid is just over the top of the rice.
6. Put on the lid and lock it into place, adjust the vent nozzle to close, and press the Rice function.
7. Place a skillet over med/high heat and add the remaining extra virgin olive oil, when the oil is hot add the collard greens and garlic,sauté the mixture until the greens are tender but still bright green. Remove them from heat and place a tight-fitting lid over them. Set aside.
8. When the rice is finished, vent off the pressure, remove the lid and fluff with a fork or spoon. Add the marinara sauce, half cup of the mixed cheeses, 1/4 cup of chopped fresh curly leaf parsley, and the collard greens and garlic mixture. Fold the ingredients until everything is mixed together.
9. Serve with all of the extra toppings.