Preheat the oven to 450. Place a baking sheet for the broccoli in the oven while the oven heats up (an empty baking sheet).
Once the oven is preheated, toss frozen broccoli with olive oil, lemon zest, lemon juice, garlic powder, Italian seasoning and red chili flake if using, salt and pepper. You do not want to defrost the broccoli, so I keep it frozen until the oven is ready or close to ready. Remove the baking sheet from the oven and carefully line with foil/parchment/silpat and spray with cooking spray.
Add broccoli to the baking sheet in a single layer.
Bake for 18-25 minutes or until the broccoli reaches desired crispness. (You can also broil the broccoli at the end of the roast for extra crispness, but watch very closely checking at 1 minute increments (at least).)
While the broccoli is roasting, we are going to make the sausage!
Heat the butter or oil over medium heat.
Place the sausage in the pan and allow it to crisp on the bottom to get nice and brown before breaking it up.
Once the sausage is browned, break it up. If the bottom of the pan is getting a little brown, add a tbsp of water at a time, taking care not to flood the pan and make it watery - you want to continue to caramelize the sausage bits and not give it so much extra moisture that it becomes soggy.
Once there is just a little bit of pink, add the garlic and sautee until fragrant. Remove from the heat, set aside.
In a small pan, melt the butter for the panko topping.
Once the butter is melted, add panko and seasoning, carefully toasting over medium low heat until golden brown.
Once golden, immediately remove from the heat.
When the broccoli is finished, toss gently with the cooked sausage.
To assemble: add a dollop of ricotta to the bottom of each dish with salt and pepper. Add the broccoli and sausage mixture to the plates, topping with the panko crumb and parmesan cheese.Garnish with salt, pepper, lemon zest, etc.