The perfect meal for a cold wintery day, that is the ideal treat to warm you up. I have been making sausage casserole for about 10 years and each time I make it, its slightly different but over the years I have realised that there are some key ingredients that make it gorgeous. We don’t have sausage casserole that often as you have you make sure you shop specifically for it, but when we do we could eat it all week!
You will need:
Really good sausages x 8-10
A large red onion
A red and orange pepper
A couple of carrots
A large handful of new potatoes
A parsnip (optional)
2 tins of tomatoes
Tomato puree
2 beef oxo cubes
Lea & Perrins Worcestershire Sauce
Herbs, Salt & Pepper
A good splash of red wine
Ideally the casserole should be left all day to slowly cook through but if you, like me, don’t have all day to cook, or time in the morning to prepare the evening meal before work then you can speed the casserole up and it should only need a couple of hours to perfect.
I made the sausage casserole tonight while feeding kids, and pets and sorting out washing and football kits. To start with put the sausages in a tin and put in the oven to cook… they should need about 20 minutes to brown off. Peel and chop the carrots so that they are in chunks and put them in a pan with the potatoes cut into quarters (leave skins on) and bring to boil. I always boil the kettle and add the hot water to things like vegetables which gets them to the boil really quickly. You are just trying to take the edge off the potatoes and carrots and get them started. Peel and chop the parsnip and leave to one side.
In a deep pan heat up some olive oil, and throw in the red onion cut up into chunks. Cook them off for a little bit before adding in the chopped up peppers. Cook for a little and then add in the par cooked potatoes and carrots, along with the raw parsnip. Stir and cook a little before adding the Oxo cubes, the Lea & Perrins, herbs, salt & peppers and continue to stir and cook a little. Add in the tins of tomatoes roughly chopped with a good squirt of tomato puree and the red wine. Stir again and cook for a little while.
By this time the sausages will be just about done and nicely brown. Bring them out of the oven and chop up into 3 or 4 pieces depending on the size of the sausages. The pan will be getting pretty full now, so stir in carefully and bring back up to full heat. Then transfer it all to a casserole dish and put it in the oven on a medium heat for an hour or so.
When it is ready the carrots and potatoes will be soft but still in one piece and all of the flavours will be merged together. The sausage casserole is a meal in itself and it is great served with crusty bread, eaten with a spoon, while enjoying the rest of the bottle of red wine that you opened!
