A sheet-pan dinner built around chicken sausage already seasoned with kale, brightened with lemon and served over soft polenta. The sausage has fennel and paprika in it, so the dish tastes like something that took hours to build. This is a weeknight meal that feels like weekend cooking.

Serves 2. 30 minutes, 15 at the stove.

About 400 calories a serving, 31 g protein, 27 g carbohydrate, 20 g fat. From USDA figures for 83% of the ingredients; amounts are the recipe's.

Cook mode

1. Bring 3 cups of water to a boil in a saucepan with 1 teaspoon of salt. Mince 2 cloves of garlic into the water, then pour in 1 cup of polenta in a slow stream while stirring constantly to avoid lumps. Stir until no lumps remain, about 2 minutes.
2. Reduce heat to low and stir the polenta every few minutes as it thickens, 12 to 15 minutes, until it pulls away from the sides of the pan. Stir in 2 tablespoons of butter and adjust salt and pepper to taste.12 min
3. While the polenta cooks, heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Remove the sausage from its casing and crumble it into the pan, breaking it apart with a wooden spoon as it browns, 6 to 8 minutes, until no pink remains and the fat renders.7 min
4. Squeeze 1 lemon over the sausage and stir to combine. Taste and add salt and pepper as needed.
5. Spoon the soft polenta into two bowls and top each with half the sausage and pan drippings.

Note Swap the polenta for soft rice or couscous if you have it on hand. Leftovers keep three days refrigerated; reheat gently on the stovetop with a splash of water to restore the polenta. Serve with bitter greens dressed simply in lemon and oil on the side.