The Queen of Comedy’s easy one-skillet meal looks seriously delicious.
Key Points
- Lucille Ball’s Sunday Night Special is a simple, one-pot meal perfect for family dinners or meal prep.
- The recipe features classic ingredients like sausage, rice, and veggies, with room for creative tweaks.
- This timeless dish is easy to make, requiring just a skillet, a few steps, and minimal prep time.
In between being a movie and TV star, producer and major studio executive, Lucille Ball still somehow found the time to cook. The late Hollywood mogul left behind plenty of treasures for future generations to enjoy, including Lucy’s Sunday Night Special.
The recipe, which the Library of Congress recently shared to their Instagram page, is a simple, one-pot meal that requires just a handful of ingredients. The recipe serves six to eight people, making it the perfect choice for meal prep or, as the name suggests, a hearty Sunday night meal for the whole family.
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Despite being developed decades ago, this recipe is full of classic elements that make this dinner timeless. Plus, there are plenty of ways to tweak the recipe, whether that’s adding some extra veggies or sprinkling on cheese after baking.
Want to try it for yourself? Here’s how the on-screen icon made her Sunday Night Special:
To start, fry a 1/4 cup of blanched almonds in a pan with butter—you’ll need these later on in the process. Once the almonds are set aside, Ball adds 1 pound sausage to a dry pan to fry. She doesn’t specify which kind of sausage, so feel free to use whatever you prefer. She also makes a note to drain all the grease before moving on to the next step.
Add 1 cup each chopped celery, green onions and peppers to your pan, sauteing everything together. Now’s the time to add the almonds you fried earlier, along with 1 1/2 cups uncooked rice and 2 pints store-bought or homemade chicken broth.
Give it a quick stir to make sure your broth covers all the ingredients. Then, place the entire skillet into an oven that’s been pre-heated to 350°F. Ball suggests leaving your skillet in the oven for one or two hours. Since that’s such a big range, we recommend using a thermometer or taking out your skillet and stirring it periodically to identify when it’s done cooking—start checking on the dish after about 45 minutes and go from there.
And voila! You have a delicious dinner to enjoy on a Sunday night (or any night of the week). This meal is plenty satisfying on its own, but serving it with a side salad is a perfect way to add some freshness to your plate. Here are some of our favorites that will go great alongside this dish: