Snowshoeing up epic mountain peaks with my adventure dog at my side. A twelve-mile mountain bike ride followed by a zen-like cold plunge into an alpine lake in April. Hand feeding my Norwegian Forest Cat fistfuls of organic home-grown catnip in my backyard. I may not be Julie Andrews as Maria from The Sound of Music, but these are a few of my favorite things.
There are oh so many things I love about this awesome life we have made in the mountains of southern California, however, bland Italian food is not one of them. If you want to know a dirty little secret about me, I hate Italian food
I know, I know, that’s such a strange thing to say! Who doesn’t love spaghetti and fettuccine and all those other sauce-drenched carbs? Not this keto-centric food blogger! I have never really enjoyed Italian food since I was a kid. I blame it on a childhood full of bottomless breadsticks from the Olive Garden. I feel like Olive Garden, with their soggy bottomless salad full of soybean oil salad dressing that RFK Jr would definitely roll his bloodshot eyes at here in 2025, was one foodie memory I tried to block out from my childhood. When a fancy family lunch out means a two-hour wait in 110-degree heat to sit in a booth at the Olive Garden while my 15-year-old ADHD brother throws a temper tantrum in the seat next to me, perhaps my first experiences with Italian food were not world-class.
Welcome to fine dining in the 90s, quality time spent two hours outside of the Olive Garden, sweating in the desert sun before lunch with my family, of the blandest Italian food you can find in southern California. Why yes, I have no patience for Italian food.
But then I traveled to Italy a few times between the ages of twenty-five and forty and learned there is more to Italian food than Olive Garden’s bland lasagna.
As much as I do not care for Italian food, my Mom’s Italian Sausage Sandwich was one of my favorite dinners growing up. This, however, is the keto version. What is the surprise? Just how many veggies I throw into this great stir fry and also how low-carb this easy dish is!
Keto Italian Sausage Surprise
1 bulb of fennel, sliced thin
1 yellow bell pepper
1 small onion
3 teaspoons avocado oil
1/2 teaspoon coarse salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
Fresh chopped parsley to garnish the dish
1 package hot Italian sausage (I highly recommend buying the one from Trader Joe’s. It is the highest quality.)
2 packages of Konjac keto noodles
You could also use a low-carb wrap and do this as a wrap.
Pre-boil your Italian sausages whole for ten minutes. Set aside to cool, so that you can slice them. Save the broth you boiled them in to make soups.
In the avocado oil, fry up the onion slices for a good five minutes. Add in the fennel slices as well as the bell pepper slices. Add your sliced Italian sausages, then your Konjac noodles, salt and pepper. Stir-fry the noodles well. When you are ready to serve, drizzle the Chile Aioli over the dish. Garnish with the parsley.
