Before this week, I’d only eaten paella in restaurants. I love the flavor of this dish and knew my boys would enjoy it as well. This week I created a kid-friendly version of this traditionally-spicy meal, made with Klement’s Smoked Polish Sausage and North Carolina shrimp. If you’ve never heard of paella, it’s a Spanish dish typically made with saffron, rice, seafood and meat. Most paella recipes call for hot sauce or cayenne pepper, but I excluded the spicy flavors in my recipe so it would be more palatable for a child’s taste buds.
For this dish, I used Klement’s Smoked Polish Sausage. I’m not a huge fan of many sausage brands because a lot of them are super spicy and do not appeal to kids. Because Klement’s is European-style sausage, however, it’s flavorful but not spicy. It takes on the other flavors in the recipe.
To give you a little more information about the Klement’s brand, they are a family-founded business that began in 1956. Through three generations of artisan sausage makers, Klement’s has grown from a small sausage kitchen in Wisconsin to one of the largest producers of fine, Old World sausage products.
Other important facts about Klement’s Smoked Polish Sausage are:
- Naturally hardwood smoked
- No MSG added
- Gluten free
- Soy free
- Small batch
- 100% quality ingredients
- Only premium cuts of beef and pork used
Now to tell you about this delicious recipe. Along with the sausage, I used North Carolina shrimp, but you can use whatever fresh shrimp you have in your local grocery stores. For the rice component, I used Arborio which you can find in any supermarket. Arborio rice is a short-grained Italian rice that works really well for paella. The other ingredients included are fresh herbs, spices and produce.
Kid-Friendly Paella with Klement’s Sausage
Ingredients
- 1 package of Klement's fully-cooked smoked Polish sausage
- 1 lb of shrimp (peeled, deveined, tails off)
- 6 cups french cut green beans
- Fresh lemon juice from 1/2 lemon
- 4 cups chicken broth or vegetable broth
- 1 med yellow onion
- 2 Roma tomatoes thickly chopped
- 4 cloves garlic (minced)
- 2 tsp paprika
- 1 tsp saffron
- 1/4 tsp sea salt
- 1/4 tsp black pepper
- 1 1/2 cups Arborio rice
- 3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 1/3 cup fresh parsley
- Other 1/2 of lemon cut into wedges
Instructions
- Heat olive in a large skillet
- Cook shrimp until sightly pink
- Add sausage and saute both proteins until shrimp is a deep pink
- Scoot the protein over to one side and add onion until it softens
- Add garlic, rice, tomatoes and green beans and stir until rice browns slightly
- Add chicken broth and spices
- Bring to a boil and then reduce heat and simmer, covered
- Continue stirring periodically until dish thickens and rice is fully cooked (approx. 20 min)
- Plate and top with a lemon slice; sprinkle with chopped parsley
This paella is truly scrumptious, and it makes a large amount. We enjoyed it the night I made it, and I’ve already eaten the leftovers several times. If you’ve never made paella, I recommend it. I really like using Klement’s Polish sausage and shrimp in mine, but you can always switch up the proteins. And if you’ve never cooked with saffron (one of the integral components of paella), I recommend that as well.
So delicious! Enjoy this recipe. If you make it, I would love to hear what you think about it.
This is a sponsored post written on behalf of the Klement’s brand, but as always, opinions are 100% my own. Stay connected with Klement’s on Twitter and Facebook.